Explosions in Takata's airbags raised alarms at the highest levels of the airbag manufacturer and its biggest customer, Honda, more than five years ago, according to internal documents unsealed by a Florida court on Wednesday.
Safety investigators additionally linked yet another death to the defect, bringing the total to eight in the United States and nine worldwide.
Twelve automakers have recalled more than 19 million cars to repair components in the defective airbags, which can explode when they deploy, sending metal fragments flying.
The documents were unsealed as part of a lawsuit brought against Takata in Florida. According to minutes of a meeting at Honda's American headquarters in Torrance, California, on July 22, 2009, Hidenobu Iwata, who at the time oversaw the automaker's manufacturing operations in the United States, pressed Takata's president, Shigehisa Takada, on the extent of the defect.
"I am constantly worrying how far it spreads out," Iwata told Takada and other Takata executives at the meeting, according to the minutes. "I want you to study the reason quickly."
An engineer identified only as Otaka pressed Takata on the reasons for the defect, according to the minutes. "Why does the propellant deteriorate with age? Why does it explode? I want to know the truth."
That meeting was called two months after the first known death linked to a Takata airbag rupture. Ashley Parham, 18, of Oklahoma bled to death after her driver-side airbag ruptured in a crash in May 2009, shooting out a piece of debris that sliced open an artery in her neck.
At that time, only about 4,000 vehicles had been recalled over what Takata and Honda described at the time as a limited manufacturing problem. Five days after the meeting, Honda recalled an additional 440,000 vehicles over the defect, but both companies continued to assert that the defect was limited to isolated manufacturing issues.
In November of that year, regulators began an investigation into those recalls, but shut down that inquiry six months later, saying it had found insufficient information to suggest that Honda had not been forthcoming to regulators over the defect.
Takata declined to comment on the internal documents. Bloomberg first reported on the documents.
Also on Wednesday, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it had identified another death linked to the defective airbags.
The victim was in a 2001 Honda Accord whose driver-side airbag exploded after an accident near Pittsburgh in July, said Gordon Trowbridge, spokesman for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The victim, who was not identified, had severe injuries and died several days later, he said.
The safety agency learned of the crash last week when lawyers retained by the family contacted the agency. Regulators will examine the vehicle with Honda and Takata representatives, Trowbridge said. Honda said it had sent several recall notices to the previous owner of the Accord between 2010 and 2012, but the car's airbag had not yet been repaired.
Honda mailed an additional recall notice to the car's current owner on July 21, a day before the crash, said a Honda spokesman, Chris Martin. He declined to give further details.
"Our thoughts and sincere sympathies are with the family," Martin said in a statement. "We are working hard to understand this crash and the cause of the injuries that resulted in this fatality." A Takata spokesman, Jared Levy, also expressed condolences to the victim's family.
In addition to disclosing another fatal crash, Trowbridge said that the safety agency was expanding the recalls to include several hundred thousand Honda, Mazda and Subaru vehicles.
The new recalls are being issued for 2005-8 Subaru Legacy and Outback vehicles, 2005-8 Mazda 6 cars, and 2002-4 Honda CR-Vs, Trowbridge said. These were being recalled based on results of continuing testing, he said.
The recalls, in addition to the millions of cars already recalled, are intended to replace a component in the airbag called an inflater, which contains the propellant that can unexpectedly cause the airbag to explode. Experts in explosives have questioned the stability of that compound, ammonium nitrate, which is typically used in large-scale applications like mining.
The agency has said that unless Takata can prove that ammonium nitrate is stable and safe to use, all airbag inflaters that use the compound will eventually be recalled - potentially vastly expanding an already widespread recall.
"That is almost certainly an additional tens of millions of inflaters," Trowbridge said.
The safety agency has fined Takata $70 million for failing to disclose the defect promptly, and warned that the penalty could increase by $130 million if Takata did not live up to the terms of the consent order. That condition would make the fine a record civil punishment for the auto industry.
To oversee Takata's airbag testing and recall efforts, Trowbridge said that the agency had appointed John D. Buretta, a former principal deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department's criminal division, as an independent monitor. The appointment was part of the consent order that Takata agreed to.
Two senators on Wednesday expressed concern over the pace of the recall.
"The current pace of recall efforts is completely unacceptable and a massive disappointment," Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, and Edward J. Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts, said in a statement.
Only about 27 percent of cars with recalled driver-side airbags had been repaired as of Dec. 4, the safety agency said, though Trowbridge said the number of cars being taken in for repairs was "accelerating rapidly."
Automakers have been prioritising recalls in some more humid states, including Florida, Georgia and Hawaii, where investigators say ruptures are more likely to happen because the high humidity is thought to degrade the ammonium nitrate propellant over time. In those humid areas, about 34 percent of cars with driver-side airbag recalls have been serviced, the agency said.
Safety investigators additionally linked yet another death to the defect, bringing the total to eight in the United States and nine worldwide.
Twelve automakers have recalled more than 19 million cars to repair components in the defective airbags, which can explode when they deploy, sending metal fragments flying.
The documents were unsealed as part of a lawsuit brought against Takata in Florida. According to minutes of a meeting at Honda's American headquarters in Torrance, California, on July 22, 2009, Hidenobu Iwata, who at the time oversaw the automaker's manufacturing operations in the United States, pressed Takata's president, Shigehisa Takada, on the extent of the defect.
"I am constantly worrying how far it spreads out," Iwata told Takada and other Takata executives at the meeting, according to the minutes. "I want you to study the reason quickly."
An engineer identified only as Otaka pressed Takata on the reasons for the defect, according to the minutes. "Why does the propellant deteriorate with age? Why does it explode? I want to know the truth."
That meeting was called two months after the first known death linked to a Takata airbag rupture. Ashley Parham, 18, of Oklahoma bled to death after her driver-side airbag ruptured in a crash in May 2009, shooting out a piece of debris that sliced open an artery in her neck.
At that time, only about 4,000 vehicles had been recalled over what Takata and Honda described at the time as a limited manufacturing problem. Five days after the meeting, Honda recalled an additional 440,000 vehicles over the defect, but both companies continued to assert that the defect was limited to isolated manufacturing issues.
In November of that year, regulators began an investigation into those recalls, but shut down that inquiry six months later, saying it had found insufficient information to suggest that Honda had not been forthcoming to regulators over the defect.
Takata declined to comment on the internal documents. Bloomberg first reported on the documents.
Also on Wednesday, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it had identified another death linked to the defective airbags.
The victim was in a 2001 Honda Accord whose driver-side airbag exploded after an accident near Pittsburgh in July, said Gordon Trowbridge, spokesman for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The victim, who was not identified, had severe injuries and died several days later, he said.
The safety agency learned of the crash last week when lawyers retained by the family contacted the agency. Regulators will examine the vehicle with Honda and Takata representatives, Trowbridge said. Honda said it had sent several recall notices to the previous owner of the Accord between 2010 and 2012, but the car's airbag had not yet been repaired.
Honda mailed an additional recall notice to the car's current owner on July 21, a day before the crash, said a Honda spokesman, Chris Martin. He declined to give further details.
"Our thoughts and sincere sympathies are with the family," Martin said in a statement. "We are working hard to understand this crash and the cause of the injuries that resulted in this fatality." A Takata spokesman, Jared Levy, also expressed condolences to the victim's family.
In addition to disclosing another fatal crash, Trowbridge said that the safety agency was expanding the recalls to include several hundred thousand Honda, Mazda and Subaru vehicles.
The new recalls are being issued for 2005-8 Subaru Legacy and Outback vehicles, 2005-8 Mazda 6 cars, and 2002-4 Honda CR-Vs, Trowbridge said. These were being recalled based on results of continuing testing, he said.
The recalls, in addition to the millions of cars already recalled, are intended to replace a component in the airbag called an inflater, which contains the propellant that can unexpectedly cause the airbag to explode. Experts in explosives have questioned the stability of that compound, ammonium nitrate, which is typically used in large-scale applications like mining.
The agency has said that unless Takata can prove that ammonium nitrate is stable and safe to use, all airbag inflaters that use the compound will eventually be recalled - potentially vastly expanding an already widespread recall.
"That is almost certainly an additional tens of millions of inflaters," Trowbridge said.
The safety agency has fined Takata $70 million for failing to disclose the defect promptly, and warned that the penalty could increase by $130 million if Takata did not live up to the terms of the consent order. That condition would make the fine a record civil punishment for the auto industry.
To oversee Takata's airbag testing and recall efforts, Trowbridge said that the agency had appointed John D. Buretta, a former principal deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department's criminal division, as an independent monitor. The appointment was part of the consent order that Takata agreed to.
Two senators on Wednesday expressed concern over the pace of the recall.
"The current pace of recall efforts is completely unacceptable and a massive disappointment," Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, and Edward J. Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts, said in a statement.
Only about 27 percent of cars with recalled driver-side airbags had been repaired as of Dec. 4, the safety agency said, though Trowbridge said the number of cars being taken in for repairs was "accelerating rapidly."
Automakers have been prioritising recalls in some more humid states, including Florida, Georgia and Hawaii, where investigators say ruptures are more likely to happen because the high humidity is thought to degrade the ammonium nitrate propellant over time. In those humid areas, about 34 percent of cars with driver-side airbag recalls have been serviced, the agency said.
©2015 The New York Times News Service