{"id":2814,"date":"2026-07-16T19:09:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T19:09:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/trustedmovinggroups.com\/?p=2814"},"modified":"2026-07-16T19:09:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T19:09:11","slug":"tesla-driver-whose-car-slammed-into-texas-home-overrode-driver-assistance-mode-ntsb-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trustedmovinggroups.com\/?p=2814","title":{"rendered":"Tesla driver whose car slammed into Texas home overrode driver assistance mode, NTSB says"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Weeks after a 76-year-old woman was killed when a Tesla, operating on Full Self-Driving, crashed into her Texas home, the National Transportation Safety Board concluded that the car\u2019s driver overrode the driver assistance mode and accelerated into the building. <\/p>\n

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Michael Butler, 44, was operating the Tesla Model 3 that killed Martha Avila on June 19. The vehicle was going at 70 mph when the crash occurred, the agency said. <\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

According to a NTSB report released Wednesday, the car was on a residential road when it \u201cpartially entered a driveway, and crashed into a residence.\u201d <\/p>\n

The driver had engaged Tesla\u2019s Advanced Driver Assistance System, Full Self-Driving (Supervised) at the time of the crash, the NTSB report said. <\/p>\n

But, it continued, \u201celectronic data recovered from the vehicle indicated that before the crash, the driver manually overrode FSD (Supervised) by pressing the accelerator pedal to 100%, and the vehicle\u2019s speed was greater than 70 mph when the crash occurred.\u201d <\/p>\n

As a result, the woman inside the home was killed, and the driver sustained minor injuries, the NTSB said. <\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Butler has since been charged with manslaughter in connection with Avila\u2019s death. Prosecutors and investigators have not yet said whether the car was at all to blame.<\/p>\n

An attorney for Butler did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the findings. <\/p>\n

The agency pointed out that the residential road, Rose Hollow Lane, has a speed limit of 30 mph. Also, at the time of the crash, \u201cthe weather was clear, the roadway was dry, and daylight conditions were present,\u201d the NTSB report said. <\/p>\n

The NTSB findings echo what Ashok Elluswamy, vice president of AI software at Tesla, said days after the crash, defending the vehicle\u2019s systems.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 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,\u201d Elluswamy wrote on X on June 22. <\/p>\n

Tesla and its CEO, Elon Musk, did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment on Thursday. <\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

But Philip Koopman, a professor emeritus at Carnegie Mellon University who has been working on self-driving car safety for 30 years, told NBC News that the findings from the NTSB report might not tell the whole story. <\/p>\n

He said the NTSB must also consider whether \u201ccomputer or electronics malfunction caused a false accelerator pedal reading.\u201d <\/p>\n

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\u201cAs with any allegation of unintended acceleration by a driver, a thorough investigation must consider the potential for human driver error, but also mechanical failure, electronics failure, and software failure,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

According to the arrest affidavit, Butler told police he did not feel sick at the time of the crash and did not have any alcohol or drugs in his system. <\/p>\n

He said he was making a DoorDash delivery when he changed the music on the Tesla\u2019s touchscreen and eventually \u201cpassed out,\u201d according to the court documents. <\/p>\n

No further information was available on Butler\u2019s condition at the time of the crash. <\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Koopman pointed out that the \u201c100% pedal position\u201d at the time of the crash could be due to a number of other factors, including the driver\u2019s foot, but also a foreign object, a mechanical pedal malfunction, a wiring harness failure, a computer hardware or software malfunction, among other factors or a combination of factors. <\/p>\n

\u201cTo the degree that Tesla makes relevant information available, NTSB should also be looking for potential common cause failures in otherwise redundant systems,\u201d Koopman suggested. <\/p>\n

He added that he hopes the final NTSB report \u201cwill make clear what potential causes other than human driver error could not be ruled out because insufficient information was available.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brett Schneider, who represented the families of two victims in another Tesla crash, said the driver\u2019s behavior reported by the NTSB \u201cis not ordinary… on a low-speed residential street.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cTesla has faced years of allegations from drivers who reported their vehicles suddenly accelerating without warning, only to be told the recorded data blamed them,\u201d Schreiber explained \u201cBut electronic data recorders only log the values the vehicle\u2019s own computer generated.\u201d<\/p>\n

The NTSB said the crash remains under investigation while it determines probable cause. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has also opened a special crash investigation into the crash.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

NBC News previously reported that those involved in other similar Tesla crashes \u2014 some of which resulted in deaths \u2014 have taken issue with the way the company led by Musk advertises Full Self-Driving, noting that the technology requires more human oversight than the name suggests. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe more driving tasks automation assumes, the more important it becomes to support the driver\u2019s attention, understanding, and ability to intervene when the system reaches its limits,\u201d Bryan Reimer, an MIT researcher and adviser on the future of mobility and AI, said Thursday after reviewing the NTSB report. <\/p>\n

He added: \u201cNames such as Full Self-Driving can communicate a level of capability that the system does not actually provide. Clearer naming is a basic part of helping drivers understand their continuing responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Weeks after a 76-year-old woman was killed when a Tesla, operating on Full Self-Driving, crashed into her Texas home, the National Transportation Safety Board concluded that the car\u2019s driver overrode the driver assistance mode and accelerated into the building.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2181,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-news"],"yoast_head":"\nTesla driver whose car slammed into Texas home overrode driver assistance mode, NTSB says - Trusted Moving Group<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/trustedmovinggroups.com\/?p=2814\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Tesla driver whose car slammed into Texas home overrode driver assistance mode, NTSB says - 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