It's the case of Hien Tran which most starkly illustrates the serious dangers surrounding the current global recall of cars fitted with airbags made by the Japanese company Takata. Ms Tran, a native of Orlando, Florida, was found dead in her car after what seemed like a a relatively minor accident in her 2001 Honda Accord.
So deep were the gashes and cuts to her neck and face though that the Orlando police department originally treated her death as a possible homicide. The Orlando Sentinel newspaper reported that “according to the EMS and firefighters on the scene they stated the driver had two or three deep cuts on the right side of her neck that were not consistent with crash injuries. There were no windows broken that would cause sharp glass to penetrate a human’s body. Therefore, the force of the crash was not significant enough to cause great bodily harm to any occupant in both vehicles.”
Ms Tran had been apparently died as a result of faults with her airbag. Some 14 million cars using those airbags, made by Japanese company Takata, are now being recalled, most especially those vehicles that are used in a hot and humid environment, just like Florida’s. Why?
Because the airbag’s pyrotechnics (the explosive charges that inflate the airbag itself so rapidly) are faulty, and humidity exacerbates the problem. Improperly stored chemicals in the explosives, along with some shoddymanufacturing mean that instead of just filling the ‘bag with air, the explosives can go off like mini-bombs, with far more force than they were designed too, ripping apart the airbag mechanism and filling the car with hot, sharp shrapnel. Thus far, three deaths, including Ms Tran’s, have been directly attributed to the issue.
Takata's airbags have triggered recalls in the past, big ones, but they have usually been of the 'no fatalities have been linked to this issue' recalls. Just bring it in and get it fixed. Not this time, with the death toll mounting, General Motors, itself still mired in its own self-generated recall mess, has gone so far as to advise anyone still driving a 003-2004 Pontiac Vibe or Saab 9-2X to not allow anyone to travel in the front passenger seat until the car has been recalled and repaired.
Audi has said that it will recall 850,000 A4 models globally to rectify the issue, and BMW's 3 Series models have been affected as well. Nissan is recalling 30,000 cars in Europe, mostly Micras while Honda is asking a whopping 6-million owners world-wide to bring their cars in for inspection and rectification. Honda has been Takata's biggest customer over the years, and so is potentially the most exposed to this issue. Mazda, Subaru and Toyota have also been affected.
The problem appears to have been rolling on since at least 2004, when the first shrapnel injuries were reported by Honda owners, but it’s only now that deaths are being positively ascribed to the issue and that has seriously ramped up global concerns. Both Takata and Honda deemed the original problem as ‘an anomaly’ and didn’t follow it up. Shades of General Motor’s ignition switch scandal.
Oddly, while you would expect such a massive, potentially lethal problem such as this to bring down the company that caused it, Takata apparently will pretty much shrug it all off. So far, it has confirmed only a USD$235-million loss from the recalls, and while Shigehisa Takada, grandson of the company’s founder, has stepped down as president, he remains CEO and chairman.
