NASA nuclear engineer found dead in burned Tesla after vanishing from his Alabama home last year

A NASA nuclear scientist died after a fiery crash in a rural Alabama town last year, which at the time caused suspicion among family members.Joshua LeBlanc, 29, died in a fiery crash in his Tesla on July 22, 2025.The crash happened in Huntsville, Alabama where his Tesla was found burned beyond recognition at about 2:45 in the afternoon, the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency told Fox News Digital.The vehicle collided with a guardrail, then several trees, before the vehicle burst into flames.At 4:32 a.m.on the same day, LeBlanc’s family reported him missing, according to KLFY.He uncharacteristically failed to show up to his job as an aerospace technologies electrical engineer at NASA, where he worked on nuclear propulsion projects.His body was also burned beyond recognition, and police confirmed his identity three days later after his body was transported to the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences.At the time, his family told KLFY that they feared he had been abducted and that he had left his phone and wallet in his home at the time of the disappearance.Police tracked LeBlanc down using the data from his Tesla Sentry Mode, and found that his vehicle sat at the airport in Huntsville for four hours on the morning of his death.His family said his trip west was not part of his plan for the day, and that uncharacteristically, he was not communicating with them.A LinkedIn page for LeBlanc says he worked at NASA for about five-and-a-half years, and that he was a team lead for NASA’s Space Nuclear Propulsion (SNP) Instrumentation and Control (I&C) Maturation.NASA SNP technology “would enable faster and more robust transportation for crew and cargo missions to Mars and science missions to the outer solar system,” according to the government agency’s website.LeBlanc was later a team lead on NASA’s Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operation (DRACO), a nuclear thermal propulsion engine.At least 12 other people, the vast majority involved in nuc...