MERRITT ISLAND, Fla. \u2013 A car crash that apparently caused damages totaling more than half a million dollars is at the center of a lawsuit involving the Kennedy Space Center.<\/p>\n
Space Florida, which manages and operates the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF), filed a lawsuit late last month against Johnny Bohmer Proving Grounds LLC, which had an agreement with Space Florida to conduct automotive testing activities at the SLF. <\/p>\n
In the lawsuit, Space Florida accused Johnny Bohmer of breach of contract and negligence, stemming from an incident in 2020, when Space Florida said one of the defendant\u2019s test vehicles \u201cstruck and damaged an electrical transformer located on the SLF premises.\u201d<\/p>\n
The lawsuit stated that the cost to restore the damaged transformer and related infrastructure was $561,594.54.<\/p>\n
[WATCH: The future of the former space shuttle landing facility]<\/p>\n
Attached to the lawsuit is the contract between the two parties, stipulating that Johnny Bohmer would cover the costs of any damages incurred.<\/p>\n
Johnny Bohmer made two partial payments totaling $262,000 but has not paid the outstanding balance of $299,592.54, according to Space Florida\u2019s complaint.<\/p>\n
News 6 has reached out to Bohmer but has not heard back.<\/p>\n
In response to a request for comment, Space Florida sent News 6 the following statement:<\/p>\n
In 2020, Johnny Bohmer Proving Grounds LLC, a contractor operating at the Launch and Landing Facility, caused significant damage to NASA-owned electrical equipment. Under the NASA agreement, the contractor is responsible for repair costs. While an initial insurance payment was made based on an early cost estimate, the estimate was further revised with a more accurate repair cost. Despite multiple attempts to resolve the remaining amount and despite Space Florida providing the additional documentation needed, the contractor and its insurer have declined to reimburse the full cost of the damage. Space Florida takes seriously its responsibility to safeguard state and federal assets and as such all necessary repairs have been made with additional costs being covered by Space Florida. After repeated attempts to resolve this matter, Space Florida is seeking to recover the total, validated amount, to ensure taxpayer dollars are not burdened with repair costs and to maintain accountability by proper stewardship of state and federal assets.<\/p>\n
The details in the lawsuit are reminiscent of a separate instance when a testing vehicle crashed along the same runway. <\/p>\n
[WATCH: A $3M hypercar going 250 mph crashed on the runway of Kennedy Space Center]<\/p>\n
In 2024, News 6\u2019s Erik von Ancken discovered through a public records request that a Hennessey Venom F5<\/a>\u2014one of the fastest cars in the world under development to attempt to break 300 mph \u2014 crashed during \u201cstraight-line testing\u201d along the same runway at the Kennedy Space Center.<\/a><\/p>\n Five days after the crash, John Hennessey, CEO and founder of Hennessey Special Vehicles, said the $3 million hypercar was approaching 250 miles per hour when it lost control. The driver was able to walk away from the crash.<\/p>\n Breaking News Alerts<\/p>\n Get breaking news alerts delivered to your inbox.<\/p>\n Copyright 2025 by WKMG ClickOrlando – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MERRITT ISLAND, Fla. \u2013 A car crash that apparently caused damages totaling more than half a million dollars…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":327494,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[34722,28,16569,79,193,74],"class_list":["post-327493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-brevard-county","tag-business","tag-kennedy-space-center","tag-science","tag-space","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327493\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}