Exclusive: New Takata air bag recall to cover five million U.S. vehicles - sources

By David Shepardson and Bernie Woodall

(Reuters) - U.S. safety regulators and major automakers are expected on Friday to announce a new recall of about 5 million vehicles with potentially defective Takata Corp <7312.T> air bags, sources familiar with the matter said.

The new recall was prompted in part by the death of a driver of a Ford pickup truck last month.

The Dec. 22 death of a Georgia man in South Carolina was the 10th worldwide associated with Takata's air bag inflators, and the first to occur in a vehicle that was not made by Honda Motor Co <7267.T>.

A Ford Motor Co spokesman said the automaker is aware of the reported death.

 

Twelve major automakers have previously recalled more than 23 million Takata air bag inflators in more than 19 million vehicles in one of the biggest and most complex safety recalls in U.S. automotive history.

It is not clear how many of the 5 million vehicles being recalled Friday may have been covered by previous recalls.

Several automakers are expected to take part in the new recall for two separate types of Takata air bag inflators, the sources said, including people at Ford and Honda.

A spokesman for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), Gordon Trowbridge, said the agency would brief reporters later on Friday on Takata developments, declining to elaborate.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Tom Brown)