the vehicle crashed into the rainbow bridge checkpoint structure and caught fire and exploded. the two occupants of the vehicle are now dead, and one customs and border patrol officer sustained minor injuries that did not require hospitalization. authorities did not find a secondary explosive or device. the white house says they are monitoring the situation closely, and the canada border service agency says it is working with the u.s. counterparts on this matter. the fbi is now investigating this cnn and whether or not the crash was intentional. joining us now, nbc news investigative correspondent tom winter, former fbi counterintelligence agent peter strzok is back with us, and joining us by phone former assistant doppler radar for counterintelligence, tom figliuzzi. why don't you give us a talk about how this all went down. >> sure. basically, what happens here, there is a vehicle. the color of the vehicle is white, as you saw on screen in that exclusive video. and it's traveling at a very high rate of speed. now a witness interview says the vehicle at some point tries to pass or get around another vehicle. clearly hits a median, goes airborne right there, as we're looking at, and then crashes into this customs and border patrol facility that is part of the whole bridge security apparatus and customs and border checkpoint apparatus at this bridge. at this point, there is some sort of an explosion, which is what any witness would hear if they heard a car going that fast airborne, think of it, going over a fence. you can see a fence in the background there, and then enters into this compound. there is an explosion. and at that point, the fuel tank catches on fire, as you can see. and as you're seeing the flame kind of move from left to right in this video, and we'll watch it here again a second time, but i want comes up a second time, that's very indicative of a flame coming out of the gas. as the gas starts to come out of the fuel tank, it will go across the roadway, catches fire, and from there, it will travel wherever the fuel goes. of course its tendency is to catch on fire. it's gas. that's what we see. there is no indication, as we've been reporting with my colleague jonathan dienst, at least for u.s. law enforcement officials, i think it's more than that now i've lost count who have said there is no indication whatsoever that there were any explosives in the vehicle. in other words, there wasn't a bomb in the vehicle as well as the fuel tank catching on fire and exploding. there is no indication that there were any sort of secondary devices, meaning a device that was found outside of the vehicle. they've swept that facility. as you reported, there is a number of border crossings that are closed at this time out of an abundance of caution until they get a better sense here as to what exactly happened with respect to the driver of this car who is believed to be deceased. so was this an accident? was it a medical episode? we've seen that in the past. was it somebody trying to flee local law enforcement? i think we would have heard than by now. but maybe they were involved in another crime and believed that they needed to flee something. that's why they were traveling at a high rate of speed. or was this intentional to cause damage to this particular checkpoint, and then at that point we have to figure out well, what is the motive. were they going after cbp? were they going after the u.s. government? was there something that was tied to what's going on in the middle east between israel and hamas? of course we've been in a heightened terror environment for the past over month, month 1/2 at this point because of the statements from individuals overseas. it's just too soon to know. we just don't have any reporting from people that have been talking to folks involved in the investigation, from people that have been briefed what's going on to say with any sort of clarity exactly why this happened. but as you can see from all the videos we've shown you, from still images we've seen, from the accident scene, somebody was traveling in a very high rate of speed. it was obviously an enormous noise when this occurs, a huge fire. and the question now is why. >> frank figliuzzi, tom winters lays out a series of questions, a series of possibilities. if you would for us, pull back the curtain on the work the fbi is doing right now to investigate. >> sure. i think it's a sign of the heightened threat environment we're in that you see this large-scale fbi response to this, and all the media coverage. and understandably so. so the question is, while they operate from the presumption that yes, this is terrorism because that's what the rules of the road say these days, then we start proving that it's not. or that it is. how do you do that? we've got evidence in front of us. we've got a vehicle to deal with. that vehicle, even though it's burned, has a vin number on it. and there may be recoverable identifications of the two deceased persons inside the car that will help quickly identify. same with the license plate. and all of the video coverage that is understandably around a border crossing, not to mention back on the american side where they may have stopped at a convenience store, been captured on some kind of over camera coverage. all of that being done now. and as you identify who belongs to that vehicle, of course you're doing -- you're knocking on doors of family members, loved ones. you're asking for consent to search. you're talking about devices that might even have been recovered in the vehicle, and whether you can get social media posts that might indicate something about intention here. at the same time, all that can be done, and absolutely no evidence developed of kind of affiliation wh ideology that would leads to believe here is terrorism. this is work that's being done even as we speak. perhaps even search warrants being drawn up for residents and devices and communications carriers. >> peter strzok, the buffalo niagara international airport has closed to departing and arriving international flights. you have amtrak suspending service between new york and canada. what does all of that suggest to you? >> i think it's very consistent with what both tom and frank indicated, that the authorities are treating this as potentially an act of terrorism. you have to assume the worst and work back from there. i think as fbi director wray indicated very recently, the terror threat level is at the highest it has been in many years. i think any time you see something like this around something of a symbolic nature of the thanksgiving holiday, the immediate response is going to be something -- one of caution. and to make sure that public safety is preserved, to make sure there is a heightened level of alert, and things being checked and done to maintain public safety. in this case, when you have the largest fbi, there is a buffalo field office at niagara falls, this is something that federal, state and local officials along with canadian counterparts train for and coordinate for on a routine basis. so i expect this is a response of being very cautious. certainly we do not know what classified intelligence may be available to the u.s. intelligence community, to the fbi. but in this case, i think it is from everything we're seeing and certainly what tom is reporting, while there are no direct indications of terrorism, you see officials approaching this event, and all of the circumstances with a great deal of caution. >> you know, peter, it's tom winter. i am thinking i know a lot of your background and experience is in the counterintelligence field. but i know everybody on set and talking here today is familiar with over the course of the past several decades the attention that's been paid to the northern border with respect to terrorism. and we saw the millennium plot in 1999, 2000. we've seen other indications of that border being used as a possible entry point. and i'm speaking about the border at large, not this specific checkpoint, over the years. i'm wondering if that's a reason, and perhaps you can expand further a we can get into it, a reason why officials are so concerned because the id o the northern border as a potential nexus to terrorism is certainly not a foreign one to law enforcement. >> well certainly that's a good point. i was stationed up in boston as my first office. i worked on the richard reed terrorism investigation. he was the shoe bomber who attempted to explode a device on an incoming international flight. we've seen millennium bombing in the state of washington out on the west coast a land entry or attempted entry by some terrorist elements. what a land entry gives you is one, a very broad space. it didn't just one airport or series of airports. you have any number of places where you can cross the border. and of course, your ability to carry much more equipment, whether that's an explosive device or other weapons. you can put a lot more into a car or a truck than you can into a suitcase, say, if you're going on to an aircraft. but again, this is something because unfortunately of the long experience of the united states with being alert and learning through some difficult experiences the potential threat of border crossings that you have any number of people. certainly customs and border protection routinely exercises and trains and does on a day in and day out basis, has developed threat indicators that as people in vehicles are coming in, they are alert for potential indicators of suspicious activity and vehicles and so forth. so there are procedures in place. there are very close relationships i can tell you between the fbi, again, not just the new york state police and cbp and dhs personnel, but with their canadian counter parts. where it's the royal canadian mounted police, whether that is the canadian intelligence service, whether that is local other canadian law enforcement personnel. these are relationships that are well established. i am certain right now that there is a great deal of information that is flowing between the united states and canada, and then all across the united states government, whether that's the fbi, whether it's the u.s. intelligence community, collecting overseas. everybody is trying to figure out. and as frank said, getting to the evidence on the ground to get positive identifications who these people are, what communications they might have used, what phone numbers, what emails, et cetera. all of that is being pursued right now. >> frank figliuzzi, you and i have sat here many times during incidents like this, and you always remind you, you begin with the premise that it could be terrorism, but also, you always keep in mind the possibility that it is not there. is the question of intentionality. there is the question of motive. as we watch this video over and over again of the car in this incident, just how useful is that to investigators? >> well, you know, the short -- as they say, the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. so when you hear, and you hear a description of the video where the car is striking a median first, and then launching into the cbp station, you have to ask yourself whether if this were truly a deliberate act of terror, whether that would have been the choice and most efficient route to hit that station. i would argue probably not. there are better ways to target a u.s. government facility than launching yourself off a median strip at 100 miles an hour. it's hard to even plan that, quite frankly. all of the security coverage, and they'll be pulling cameras from everywhere this car was on the american side, whether it stopped at a place or not, everybody is going to be asked if they had security camera coverage. all of that is indicative. even close-up shots which you would often see around a cbp station that might give us access into the car, that where you see that someone slumped over the wheel, maybe had a medical situation. family members will be asked medical history once they're identified, and they might say yeah, he is being treated, the driver is being treated for a heart condition. if that's true, maybe this person had a major heart event. so all of this will be put together. and all of the resources when you're talking about a place, this location happens to have access to fbi resources, not only in fbi buffalo, as peter said, which is right there, but easily fbi albany and other stand-alone field office will be called in. and if more resources are needed, fbi, new york, the largest fbi field office in the country, right down there, and they're probably headed up there as we speak. >> frank, it's tom. i'm thinking back to something you and have i kind of casually referenced throughout the afternoon, but maybe we good k get into a little more detail here to explain to folks. when you look at the video of what happened here and you look at this car and you look at the aftermath of it, you have to think, how is it possible that there is any evidence here that could start to identify who may have been driving this car, whoa may have owned this car. but of course there is a number of new technologies, whether it's a license plate reader or old technologies. and i'm thinking of the 1993 world trade center bombing. this is chronicled in richard esposito's bomb squad book of how they were able to use a solvent to get off the residue from that explosion of the vin number on the truck that was used for the bomb and then be able to trace that back to who rented it. so what are some of the new technologies, and what are kind of some of the old school investigative techniques that they might use to determine who owned this vehicle and who may have been behind the wheel? >> yeah, i continue to be amazed at the technology that's used for example, with regard to recovery of devices. so if phones or laptops were in the car, you might think, well, that's a total loss. that seems like that's burnt to a crisp. but the forensics teams are really impressively adept these days at recovering data off of those. with regard to a vin number, i know we're all used to seeing, well, my vin number is somewhere on the windshield of my car, down at the bottom. but vin numbers appear in multiple places on your vehicle and can be recovered through various kind of acid washing and recovery techniques after arson has occurred, for example, in a vehicle. and they'll look for the most clear place on the vehicle where that vin stamp exists, whether it's the door post or whether it's an engine block, or whether it's that bottom of the windshield. that's likely to happen. the other thing going on forensically will be the cell towers in the area. because who were they communicating with? once they identified a vice and a phone number, who was that number communicating with? were there other people, associates that could be part of something larger here? so that will go on as well. >> peter strzok, when you think about the fact that you have fbi director wray saying we are at a heightened state of alert in this country, it is the day before thanksgiving. you are now talking about major border points that have been closed. you're talking about a major airport that is not sending or receiving international flights. you're talking about train service by amtrak being suspended from new york to canada. talk about what that means both for law enforcement and for americans who are a few hours out from a holiday and facing what is invariably a level of destruction. >> well, of course it's disruptive. this is one of the busiest travel days in the calendar year. so this is going to be something whether you are on the road, whether you're going to an airport, you're going to already face lines. and the prospect of this border cross willing be shut down and treated as a crime scene for presumably a long time, meaning hours, well into tomorrow, if not well beyond tomorrow. and the other disruptions will present real issues for travelers. but for law enforcement and for americans in general, this is something that we absolutely have to take seriously. i completely agree with both tom and rank. this is something that on its face from what we know right now, i don't at all. i'm not convinced is anything rempted to terrorism. we have to treat it that way, though. at the same time, we don't need to be getting everybody spun up and jumping to conclusions that there is something to be terrified of and worried about. but when it comes to law enforcement, when it comes to the law enforcement response, they have to treat this responsibly and as it might be the worst case scenario and then dial back from that. because the worst thing would be not to take it as seriously as needed and to have something very, very bad happen in addition to this. so unfortunately, it is going to be a significant disruption for people in the northeast of the united states. but unfortunately, it's absolutely something we need to do to ensure the safety of the american people. i expect that we will this time tomorrow have a much, much better idea of exactly what happened, and hopefully everybody can sit down to their thanksgiving holiday and enjoy their family and joy the event. >> one quick ad. i think it might be potentially important. the information we're getting on the buffalo airport is no departures and no arrivals is tied to international flights. and as we've seen in both of these two gentlemen no know, this is something we typically see to try to make sure nobody leaves the country. i think that's something important to keep in mind. it does not appear initially to be all flights in and out. >> peter strzok, tom figliuzzi. i've seen you working the phones this entire time. please come back to us with more information as you visit. thanks for joining us for this breaking news. when we come back, the other big breaking news today, news of a hostage deal. it is coming together. israel's prime minister calling it a hard decision, but an exchange for the release of 50 women and children will be a ceasefire starting tomorrow. and a live report is just ahead. and the 3-year-old girl, an american taken hostage in israel is expected to be remember leased as part of the deal, just in time for her fourth birthday. we'll speak with someone who knows little abigail's family. and later in the program, what is being called the most damning day yet in the civil trial that threatens donald trump's business empire. a former high level trump org exec breaks down in tears on the stand. all this and more. don't go anywhere. go anywhere. get up to 50% off black friday deals at chewy. i'm still going to eat your socks. no, you're not. get black friday deals that deliver excitement at chewy. hey, grab more delectables. you know, that lickable cat treat? 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