{"id":349344,"date":"2026-06-25T02:18:20","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T02:18:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/349344\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T02:18:20","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T02:18:20","slug":"us-opens-second-federal-investigation-of-deadly-tesla-crash-into-texas-home-tesla","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/349344\/","title":{"rendered":"US opens second federal investigation of deadly Tesla crash into Texas home | Tesla"},"content":{"rendered":"

The US government has opened a second federal investigation into a recent crash of a Tesla<\/a> that reportedly had driver-assistance technology engaged, struck a Texas home and killed a resident.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the family of Martha Avila, the 76-year-old resident who was killed, has sued over the wreck<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said on Wednesday that it was launching an investigation into the 19 June crash that killed Avila in the Houston suburb of Katy.<\/p>\n

That came two days after the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said it was investigating the crash as well.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, lawyers for Avila\u2019s family said they had filed a civil complaint on Tuesday contending that Elon Musk\u2019s electric vehicle manufacturer should be held liable for her wrongful death. The plaintiffs alleged gross negligence and failure \u200bto warn that the \u201cautopilot\u201d and \u201cfull self-driving\u201d systems of the Tesla Model 3 at the center of the case were \u200cdefective.<\/p>\n

Avila\u2019s daughter, Jennifer Barbour, and \u200cher husband, Justin Barbour, maintained that the Model 3\u2019s driver, Michael Butler, told law enforcement he engaged autopilot before plowing through the front wall \u200cof Avila\u2019s home in Katy, fatally pinning her.<\/p>\n

She died later at a nearby hospital. Justin said he was also injured.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit filed in Texas\u2019s state court system seeks more than $1m in damages, along with punitive damages reflecting Tesla\u2019s alleged \u201creckless disregard for a substantial risk of severe bodily injury\u201d. The Harris county sheriff\u2019s department, which responded to the crash, said in a statement that the driver described using a driver-assistance system at the time of the wreck.<\/p>\n

Tesla and Musk, the world\u2019s richest person, did not \u200cimmediately respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n

On Monday night, Musk had gone on X \u2013 the social media platform he owns \u2013 to defend Tesla.<\/p>\n

He wrote: \u201cFSD drives slowly through neighborhood streets and this was a high speed crash!\u201d<\/p>\n

Tesla\u2019s vice-president of artificial intelligence software, Ashok Elluswamy, posted separately on X that \u201cthe driver manually overrode self-driving by pressing the accelerator all the way to 100% of the accel pedal in this residential area\u201d.<\/p>\n

The NTSB\u2019s announcement on Wednesday did not elaborate with respect to which areas the investigation may focus on. It only said it had opened an investigation into the crash that killed Avila \u201cin coordination with the Harris county sheriff\u2019s department\u201d.<\/p>\n

Federal regulators for years have been announcing a growing number of inquiries aimed at Tesla.<\/p>\n

Since 2016, the NHTSA has opened nearly 50 special investigations into Tesla crashes believed to involve advanced driver-assistance systems. About two dozen deaths from those crashes were reported.<\/p>\n

In March, the NHTSA escalated its investigation into 3.2m Teslas equipped with full \u2060self-driving, concerned the system may fail to detect or warn drivers in poor visibility.<\/p>\n

Tesla \u200bin 2023 recalled about 2m cars, or nearly \u200ball of its electric vehicles on US roads, \u200bto better ensure that drivers pay attention when using autopilot. Tesla has said autopilot enables vehicles to steer, \u200baccelerate and brake within their \u200clanes, while full self-driving \u200blets vehicles obey traffic signals and \u200bchange lanes.<\/p>\n

The automaker has also said both technologies require \u201cfully attentive\u201d drivers whose hands are on the wheel.<\/p>\n

Tesla stock fell sharply early in 2025 as its car sales plunged amid a boycott of Musk after he waded into US federal politics. He led the Trump administration\u2019s budget-cutting \u201cdepartment of government efficiency\u201d (Doge<\/a>) initiative, and he also embraced extremist political candidates in Europe.<\/p>\n

The Barbours\u2019 lawsuit also names Butler as a defendant. It is unclear whether he has a lawyer.<\/p>\n

Efforts to reach him were not immediately successful.<\/p>\n

The Barbours\u2019 lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for additional comment.<\/p>\n

Reuters contributed reporting<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The US government has opened a second federal investigation into a recent crash of a Tesla that reportedly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":349345,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-349344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=349344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349344\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/349345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}