Auto-safety investigators have identified an eighth U.S. fatality linked to a faulty Takata Corp. air bag, adding urgency to what has become the nation’s largest-ever automotive safety recall.
The latest crash due to exploding air bags occurred in July in the Pittsburgh region, Gordon Trowbridge, spokesman for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said Wednesday. The agency has also added additional models, made by Subaru Co., Mazda Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co., to the recall list.
A minor was killed driving a relative’s 2001 Honda Accord, Trowbridge said, declining to identify the victim. The vehicle had been purchased used and had spent time in a high-humidity region, which has been identified as a risk factor for air-bag failure.
“This young person’s death is tragic and it underscores why we are continuing to work so hard to get these defective deflators off the road,” he said. “Despite the unprecedented publicity surrounding these recalls, there are still vehicles under recall with parts available for repairs that have not been fixed.”
Takata’s air bags have been shown to improperly inflate in some circumstances and spray the passenger compartment with deadly shrapnel. NHTSA has confirmed eight fatalities and 100 injuries in the U.S. One overseas death has also been linked to the defective parts.
Consent Decree
Takata reached a consent decree spanning five years with NHTSA on Nov. 3, agreeing to pay fines of $70 million, fire some employees and phase out the chemical explosive linked to the failures. If the company doesn’t meet its terms, it will be subject to additional fines of as much as $130 million, which would total the largest civil penalty in NHTSA’s history.
The consent decree included the hiring of an independent monitor, to be paid for by Takata. John D. Buretta, a partner with the law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore and former principal deputy assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice Criminal Division, has been selected for the job, Trowbridge said.
Burretta previously served as the chief of the organized crime and racketeering section of the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York, and on its national security unit. In 10 years with the Department of Justice he held a number of roles, including chief of staff and director of the agency’s Deepwater Horizon Task Force, which handled BP Plc’s 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Lagging Recalls
While the pace of repairs is picking up, the agency estimates that through Dec. 4 less than a third of the 19 million vehicles recalled for air-bag risk had been fixed. Slightly more than one third of recalled vehicles in high humidity regions have been fixed, Trowbridge said. The agency defines high-humidity regions as states along the Gulf of Mexico, Puerto Rico and Hawaii.
In the two weeks ending Dec. 4, there were 950,000 repairs nationwide, more than double the pace from a month earlier, he said.
Honda had mailed the owner of the car involved in the latest fatality a notice saying it was subject to recall a day before the July 22 accident, according to a statement issued by Honda. It was unclear whether the owner received the notice before the crash.
Honda had made “numerous attempts” to notify a previous owner of the car from 2010 through 2012 about the need to repair the air bag, according to the release. The company is “working hard” to understand the cause of the death, it said in the release.
More Models
NHTSA also announced it was adding several hundred thousand vehicles to the 19 million already under recall. Air bags in Mazda 6 vehicles from 2005-2008, Honda CRVs from 2002 through 2004 and Subaru Legacys and Outbacks from 2005-2008 are being added, Trowbridge said.
Motorists can check to see if their vehicles are on the recall list at a NHTSA-run website. Repairs under the recall are free.
The recall effort drew criticism from two Senators. “The current pace of recall efforts is completely unacceptable and a massive disappointment,” said a joint statement issued by Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, and Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat.
The air-bag failures and Takata’s reaction to growing questions about them have prompted a harsh response from regulators and car manufacturers.
Foxx Comments
“For years, Takata has built and sold defective products, refused to acknowledge the defect, and failed to provide full information to NHTSA, its customers or the public,” Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said when the penalty was announced last month. “This has been a mess and today DOT is stepping in to clean up the mess.”
Four months before U.S. regulators began their investigation into Takata in 2009, Honda Motor Co. executives sat down with Shigehisa Takada, the head of Takata Corp., to scold him for the way the manufacturer reacted to the crisis over its potentially deadly air bags, according to recently released minutes of the meeting.
Honda said in November it would no longer use Takata air bags in future models. Nissan Motor Co. and Toyota Motor Corp. have also stopped installing some Takata components.
To contact the reporter on this story: Alan Levin in Washington at alevin24bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jon Morgan at jmorgan97bloomberg.net Elizabeth Wasserman
