Power loss with VDC and slip indicator lights on

EMac0408

Last night while I was slowly accelerating, I suddenly had practically no throttle response. I pulled the car out of gear and the engine idled normally, but with the pedal all the way to the floor, engine speed would very slowly rise to around 2,000 RPM and stop there. At the same time as the power loss, my "VDC off" light and the slip indicator light both came on and stayed on. I pulled the car into a parking lot, shut it off completely, turned it back on, and everything was perfectly normal for about 10 minutes when the exact same symptoms happened again slowly accelerating from a red light. Shut the car off again, fired it up again, and everything was normal for the next few minutes home. Today I replicated the problem going 300 yards in my neighborhood after disconnecting the battery for a few minutes.

I pulled engine code p1239 which points to an issue with the throttle body position sensor, but I don't see why that would cause the traction control system lights to come on.

It almost seems like the car thinks it has lost traction, so the traction control is cutting out the throttle. At the same time, the dash is saying that the VDC is off.

I haven't done any maintenance or modification to the car recently. It hasn't been in any accidents either. This just came up out of the blue.

Would replacing the position sensor be the fix for this?