The US National Transportation Safety Board has confirmed that a Tesla driver involved in a fatal crash in Katy, Texas, manually overrode the car's Full Self-Driving (FSD) system by pressing the accelerator to 100 percent. The finding is significant because it points to driver action, rather than a fault in the software, as the immediate cause of a crash that killed a woman in her own home, and it comes as Tesla's FSD technology faces wider regulatory scrutiny in the US.

Electronic data from the Model 3, driven by 44-year-old Michael Butler, showed the car reached speeds above 70mph on a two-lane residential road with a 30mph limit before ploughing into the house of 76-year-old Martha Avila, killing her. Conditions were clear, dry and daylit at the time. Tesla's head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy, corroborated the NTSB's account, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is also investigating. Butler, who has been arrested and charged with manslaughter, told hospital staff he recalled engaging self-driving mode before passing out; his phone reportedly showed recent searches such as "FSD is not aggressive enough for city driving."