messed up. something went wrong with our process, in this instance, and terrible things happened. twice a day, gordon hair drives by this spot, this tree. that s our tree. reporter: and he will always wonder why, how and potentially who was responsible for the death of his son. drew griffin, cnn, charlottesville, virginia. some of the families of crash victims will be on the hill, including the ruddys, to try to pressure gm about which vehicles are involved in the defect. there will be a house committee tomorrow held. we just received prepared remarks for that trial that say, i cannot tell you why it tooks years for a safety defect to be announced in that program, but i can tell you that we will find out. coming up next on the lead, the search for the plane has turned up nothing but sea garbage. searchers may run into a whole
criminal investigation concerning the handling of a faulty ignition switch that would suddenly turn the car s power off, cutting off airbags, power steering, and power brakes. more than 2 million gm cars with the problem have been recalled. but as cnn s drew griffin reports, they will not say which vehicles are involved in the deadly defects, not even the families of the victims. reporter: gordon s son was just shy of his 21st birthday heading home on this road four years ago when in an unexplained flash, his 2007 pontiac g-5 locked into a turn, hit this very tree and ben died. even if i had been there i don t think how quickly i would have been hitting the tree. he stayed overnight with friends before driving home about noon on a sunday.
he was traveling just 5 miles over the speed limit on a wet road when it happened. police blame driver error. this is him. he was a pharmacy technician. reporter: he was a smart student, a star swimmer, and a soon-to-be pharmacist. he was also brenda and gordon s only child. it s still hard to believe how it happened. reporter: and there s been no official believable explanation? that s true. we just thought it was a horrible accident until i received the letter from gm in september of 2010 stating that there was a recall and to bring his car in. reporter: brenda recovering from a recent stroke got the first recall notice from general motors nine months after ben s accident. a problem with the power