The National Transportation Safety Board opened an investigation into a fatal crash involving a Tesla Model 3 in Katy, Texas. The June 19 accident occurred when the vehicle struck a home at high speed, killing 76-year-old Martha Avila.
The driver, Michael Butler, told law enforcement he had engaged Autopilot prior to the collision. The victim’s family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Tesla, accusing it of gross negligence and failing to warn that Autopilot and Full Self-Driving were defective.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk responded, stating that Full Self-Driving operates slowly on neighborhood streets and this was a high-speed crash. The company’s AI vice president added that the driver manually overrode the system by fully pressing the accelerator.
The NHTSA, which is also investigating, has opened nearly 50 special probes into Tesla crashes involving advanced driver assistance systems since 2016.