Fatality Reported After Truck Carrying Secret Apple Payload Crashes in California?

Apple is working on a number of “top secret” products and special projects — both behind-the-scenes, and in-plain-view — and some of those projects, like the company’s ongoing Maps Navigation improvements, require that the company or its contracted-partner employees devote themselves to transporting the tools, equipment and other essentials to complete them.

Sadly, on the morning of Wednesday, January 9, two men (both retired police officers) were en route to Apple’s Northern California HQ in a box truck carrying “a very special load” for the company — when their vehicle reportedly crashed on the Northbound US-101 Freeway in San Jose, injuring one of the men, and killing the other, according to an NBC Bay Area report.

The victim, 64-year-old Richard Bartolo, was reportedly asleep in the truck’s back cabin area when the crash occurred at around 3:30 a.m.

“There are a lot of questions that still remain open, which is why we are continuing the investigation,” Ross Less, a spokesman for the California Highway Patrol, said, adding that the drivers kept a mandatory log showing they adhered to law-mandated rest schedules.

Apple neither confirmed nor denied whether it owned the contents of the vehicle. 

However, sources speaking to NBC said the men were both employees of SIS Security — a San Francisco Bay Area-based commercial transport company which, according to Apple Insider, handles the vast majority of Apple’s land-based secure transport — secure shipping of anything and everything from the tech-giant’s shredded documents, to prototype devices and more.

While the truck, heading North, was presumably en route toward the company’s sprawling Apple Park or 1 Infinite Loop HQ in Cupertino, the nature and scope of what contents were in the truck when it crashed remain shrouded in secrecy — just like everything else Apple has anything to do with, right?

Luckily, according to sources cited by NBC, it doesn’t appear that anything was stolen from the truck, and no foul play is suspected in the crash at this time.