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The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has passed judgment on a deadly crash that claimed the life of 76-year-old Martha Avila while she was at home in Katy, Texas. Avila was apparently putting away groceries in the front room when a Tesla Model 3 veered off the road at high speed and slammed through the residence’s front wall.
In this tragic story from the world of car news, the grandmother was pinned beneath the rubble and suffered fatal injuries, being declared dead after she was airlifted to a nearby hospital.
At the time, driver Michael Butler claimed the vehicle had lost control on its own, blaming the company's Full Self-Driving (Supervised) technology.
All Tesla cars built since 2019 include some form of the Tesla Autopilot advanced driver-assistance system (ADAS), with the level 2 package including FSD.
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When the tragedy was first reported, authorities said Butler was cooperating with them ahead of a federal investigation being launched by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
The NHTSA promised to look into this 'emerging technology' and whether Tesla could be liable for Avila's death, whereas the NTSB conducted its own investigation.
Elon Musk wasn't convinced by Butler's story, saying it 'makes no sense' because FSD is supposed to drive slowly through neighborhood streets, and this doesn't line up with the idea of a high-speed crash.
Musk's musings were backed up by Ashok Elluswamy, Vice President of AI Software at Tesla, who alleged: "In this case, the driver manually overrode self-driving by pressing the accelerator all the way to 100% of the accel pedal in this residential area.
“They reached a speed of 73 mph during the crash, and had the accelerator pressed even after the crash."
In the aftermath, the NTSB has revealed its findings and stated that electronic data recovered from the vehicle indicates that Butler manually overrode FSD (Supervised) by pressing the car's accelerator to 100%.
Avila's home was on a residential two-lane road with a speed limit of 30 mph, although security camera footage obtained by the NTSB shows the car zooming through an intersection, leaving the road at speed, and colliding with the house.
The safety board reiterated that the "weather was clear, the roadway was dry, and daylight conditions were present."
This led to the vehicle's speed exceeding 70 mph at the time of the crash. The report reminds us that while the driver sustained minor injuries, Avila was fatally injured.
The NTSB concluded: "All aspects of the crash remain under investigation while the NTSB determines the probable cause, with the intent of issuing safety recommendations to prevent similar crashes."
On July 3, ABC 7 confirmed Butler had been charged with manslaughter. Court documents suggest he was working as a DoorDash driver at the time of the crash, while he apparently told investigators that the last thing he remembered was operating in FSD on the highway. These same documents say the brake pedal wasn't pressed during the crash.
Elsewhere, the court alleged that Butler's Google searches included "Tesla FSD not aggressive enough 2026," "Tesla not aggressive enough," and "Tesla FSD too timid."
Avila's daughter and son-in-law have since filed a lawsuit that names both Tesla and Butler as defendants while citing negligence.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's own special crash investigation continues.
