US Opens Second Federal Probe Into Fatal Tesla Crash in Texas

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

Meanwhile, the family of Martha Avila, the 76-year-old resident who was killed, has sued over the wreck.

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.

That came two days after the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said it was investigating the crash as well.

Furthermore, lawyers for Avila’s family said they had filed a civil complaint on Tuesday contending that Elon Musk’s electric vehicle manufacturer should be held liable for her wrongful death. The plaintiffs alleged gross negligence and failure ​to warn that the “autopilot” and “full self-driving” systems of the Tesla Model 3 at the center of the case were ‌defective.

Avila’s daughter, Jennifer Barbour, and ‌her husband, Justin Barbour, maintained that the Model 3’s driver, Michael Butler, told law enforcement he engaged autopilot before plowing through the front wall ‌of Avila’s home in Katy, fatally pinning her.

She died later at a nearby hospital. Justin said he was also injured.

The lawsuit filed in Texas’s state court system seeks more than $1m in damages, along with punitive damages reflecting Tesla’s alleged “reckless disregard for a substantial risk of severe bodily injury”. The Harris county sheriff’s 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.

Tesla and Musk, the world’s richest person, did not ‌immediately respond to requests for comment.

On Monday night, Musk had gone on X – the social media platform he owns – to defend Tesla.

He wrote: “FSD drives slowly through neighborhood streets and this was a high speed crash!”

Tesla’s vice-president of artificial intelligence software, Ashok Elluswamy, posted separately on X that “the driver manually overrode self-driving by pressing the accelerator all the way to 100% of the accel pedal in this residential area”.

The NTSB’s 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 “in coordination with the Harris county sheriff’s department”.

Federal regulators for years have been announcing a growing number of inquiries aimed at Tesla.

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.

In March, the NHTSA escalated its investigation into 3.2m Teslas equipped with full ⁠self-driving, concerned the system may fail to detect or warn drivers in poor visibility.

Tesla ​in 2023 recalled about 2m cars, or nearly ​all of its electric vehicles on US roads, ​to better ensure that drivers pay attention when using autopilot. Tesla has said autopilot enables vehicles to steer, ​accelerate and brake within their ‌lanes, while full self-driving ​lets vehicles obey traffic signals and ​change lanes.

The automaker has also said both technologies require “fully attentive” drivers whose hands are on the wheel.

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’s budget-cutting “department of government efficiency” (Doge) initiative, and he also embraced extremist political candidates in Europe.

The Barbours’ lawsuit also names Butler as a defendant. It is unclear whether he has a lawyer.

Efforts to reach him were not immediately successful.

The Barbours’ lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for additional comment.

Reuters contributed reporting