NHTSA confirms 11th death linked to Takata air-bag inflators

[Titan ;x]

 

he National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Honda have confirmed that a recent crash fatality in the U.S. has been linked to the Takata air-bag rupture. The NHTSA stated late this week that a 50-year-old female driver of a 2001 Honda Civic died of injuries sustained in a crash in Riverside, California, on Sept. 30 of this year. This recent fatality is the 11th death linked to a rupture of Takata air bags in the U.S.

The NHTSA notes that the Civic in question was recalled as far back as 2008 and that the repair was not completed. The agency did not say how long the deceased owned the vehicle.

"The vehicle is included in a po[CENSORED]tion of Honda and Acura vehicles which has been identified by NHTSA as holding 'substantially higher risk,'" the NHTSA said in a statement addressing the crash. "The air-bag inflators in these particular vehicles contain a manufacturing defect which greatly increases the potential for dangerous rupture when a crash causes the air bag to deploy. Ruptures are far more likely in inflators in vehicles that have spent significant periods of time in areas of high absolute humidity -- particularly Florida, Texas, other parts of the Gulf Coast and Southern California. Testing of the inflators from these vehicles show rupture rates as high as 50 percent in a laboratory setting."
 

The agency and a number of research teams working on the issue have cited several factors that cause Takata-made air-bag inflators to deploy violently, including the lack of a desiccant drying agent, age of the air bags and the climate in which the vehicles reside.

Until the Sept. 30 crash, the most recent fatalities definitively linked to Takata air-bag inflators have occurred outside the country but also involved older Honda vehicles. Honda is not the sole marque that features Takata-made air bags that have been recalled; over a dozen other automakers have used desiccant-free inflators in their air-bag assemblies. Prior to the Sept. 30 crash, the most recent fatalities in the U.S. involved a 2002 Honda Civic in Texas and a 2006 Ford Ranger in South Carolina, both happening within the last 12 months.

Another death related to Takata ammonium inflators occurred in Texas in August of this year when a subcontractor-operated 18-wheeler carrying inflators and chemicals exploded, killing one person, injuring four and damaging 10 homes within a two-mile radius.
 

The NHTSA has listed a number of vehicles containing higher-risk inflators and urges owners to stop driving them. The vehicles listed in the group below have shown rupture rates as high as 50 percent when they were tested, with the ruptures creating a likelihood of fatal injury to drivers and passengers.  

    - 2001-2002 Honda Civic
    - 2001-2002 Honda Accord
    - 2002-2003 Acura TL
    - 2002 Honda CR-V
    - 2002 Honda Odyssey
    - 2003 Acura CL
    - 2003 Honda Pilot

"The air-bag inflators in this particular group of vehicles pose a grave danger to drivers and passengers that must be fixed right away," stated NHTSA administrator Mark Rosekind.