MUST READ:
Ford Asks for Takata Recall Pass
Posted on Monday, Dec 18th, 2017
On July 10, 2017, Takata recalled PSDI-5 driver air bag inflators containing phase-stabilized ammonium nitrate (PSAN) as a generant and calcium sulfate as a desiccant, which were used in vehicles sold in the United States as original equipment in frontal driver airbag modules. Recall 17E034 affected 2.7 million Ford, Mazda and Nissan vehicles produced between 2005 and 2012.
http://www.safetyresearch.net/blog/articles/ford-asks-takata-recall-pass
The price of delay:
Lancaster County man’s death prompts lawsuit, national recall over airbags
JANUARY 29, 2016 08:16 PM
A Lancaster County man who was killed when his pickup struck a cow last month would still be alive had it not been for the truck’s defective airbag deploying violently, shooting a piece of shrapnel through his neck and spine, his family says in a lawsuit filed this week.
Joel Knight, 52, died Dec. 22 after his 2006 Ford Ranger hit a cow on S.C. 522 as he was driving to work, authorities have said. He was wearing a seatbelt, but an attorney representing Knight’s family says the truck’s airbag – the manufacturer of which is accused in multiple cases of injury and death resulting from defective products – ruptured violently. A piece of shrapnel from the exploding device pierced Knight’s neck and spine.
“They’ve been having problems, known defects and deaths since 2003 – for more than a decade,” said Drew Creech of Elrod Pope Law Firm in Rock Hill, which is representing the family. “It’s a problem they’ve known about and they made a deliberate decision not to recall.”
The lawsuit claims Ford and Takata knew of multiple cases of people being injured or killed by exploding airbags, including a pregnant Malaysian woman who died in July 2014 after a wreck and fatal airbag rupture similar to the one that killed Knight. And yet, the suit alleges, Takata and Ford still “put profits ahead of safety” by continuing to produce and install the defective airbags.
The inflator devices in question were developed by Takata in the late 1990s to make airbags more compact, reduce the toxic fumes earlier airbag models emitted and to save costs and maximize profit for Takata, the complaint states. The redesigned airbags are inflated by an ammonium nitrate-based explosive encased in a metal canister.
“Over time, it becomes highly volatile and it causes an explosion much greater than normally anticipated,” Creech said. When the airbag deploys, the metal cylinder inside the canister ruptures in half and shoots out of the canister “like a bullet coming out of a rifle barrel.”
Creech said Ford and Takata recalled only a handful of vehicles despite knowing of many such cases, including the crash that killed the Malaysian woman, whose Honda had the same airbag and inflator model as Knight’s Ford Ranger.
“Ford was certainly aware of her death, aware of the massive (Takata airbag) recall, yet Ford chose not to recall the Ford Rangers,” Creech said. “They eventually did a very limited recall in a very select few states for the 2004 and 2005 Ford Ranger. They never recalled the 2006 Ford Ranger at all, even though they knew the same inflator model was in the Ranger.”
Knight is believed to be the ninth person killed in the United States as a result of the defective airbags, federal regulators say. His death last month prompted Takata and Ford to expand a recall this week to include trucks made from 2004 through 2006 in the U.S. and Canada. Ford alone is recalling 391,000 Rangers made during that time.
Federal regulators say this latest recall will affect about 5 million vehicles, including those made by Audi, BMW, Ford, Honda, Mazda, Mercedes Benz, Saab and Volkswagen. Visit SaferCar.gov to see if your vehicle is included in the recall.
“Our heartfelt condolences go out to the driver’s family,” Takata has said in statements to multiple outlets. “We are cooperating fully with regulators and our automotive customers and continue to take aggressive action to advance vehicle safety, including through our ongoing testing efforts, replacement kit production and raising consumer awareness of recalled vehicles.”
http://www.thestate.com/news/state/south-carolina/article57402388.html
