Three senators are calling on the Justice Department to open a criminal investigation of the air bag maker Takata after former employees reported that the Japanese supplier had carried out tests on air bags over a decade ago and found signs of defects, yet did not seek the involvement of federal safety regulators.
By Hiroko Tabuchi The New York Times Posted Nov. 8, 2014 @ 7:41 am
Three senators are calling on the Justice Department to open a criminal investigation of the air bag maker Takata after former employees reported that the Japanese supplier had carried out tests on air bags over a decade ago and found signs of defects, yet did not seek the involvement of federal safety regulators.
“These allegations are credible and shocking — plainly warranting a prompt and aggressive criminal probe,” Sens. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, both Democrats, said in a statement, responding to an article in The New York Times on Friday that reported on the employees’ disclosure.
Four deaths and more than 30 injuries have been linked to the defect, including the death last month of Hien Tran, 51. Law enforcement officers in Florida said she died after her air bag erupted violently in her 2001 Honda Accord.
Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, also called for a criminal inquiry. She said in a statement that if the accusations were true, Takata needed “to be held fully accountable, not just with financial penalties, but also with criminal charges.”
The accusations involve air bags that can rupture when they deploy in an accident, sending shrapnel into the car’s cabin and injuring the driver or passengers, instead of protecting them. Eleven automakers have recalled more than 14 million cars worldwide over the defect, including 11 million cars in the United States.
The former Takata employees say they took part in the testing of air bags retrieved from scrapyards in 2004, after an air bag ruptured in a Honda Accord that year, injuring the car’s driver. Of the air bags retrieved, two of the air bag inflaters cracked during the tests, a condition that can lead to rupture.
But instead of alerting federal safety regulators to the possible danger, Takata executives discounted the results and ordered the lab technicians to delete the testing data from their computers and dispose of the air bag inflaters, they said.
Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said the latest allegations warranted a closer investigation into what Takata, and the automakers that it supplies, knew and when.
“As the recalls continue and the faulty air bags are replaced, we also need answers about when the danger was discovered and whether it was concealed from regulators, or not adequately understood once the regulators became aware,” Upton said.
Capitol Hill has also increased pressure on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to order automakers to expand recent air bag recalls, some of which have been limited to regions with high humidity because Takata says moisture could play a role in the defect. But in the face of continued uncertainty over the cause of the ruptures, lawmakers and auto safety advocates have called for nationwide recalls.
Inside a Takata showroom in Tokyo on Thursday.Credit Shizuo Kambayashi/Associated Press
Alarmed by a report a decade ago that one of its airbags had ruptured and spewed metal debris at a driver in Alabama, the Japanese manufacturer Takata secretly conducted tests on 50 airbags it retrieved from scrapyards, according to two former employees involved in the tests, one of whom was a senior member of its testing lab.
The steel inflaters in two of the airbags cracked during the tests, a condition that can lead to rupture, the former employees said. The result was so startling that engineers began designing possible fixes in preparation for a recall, the former employees said.
But instead of alerting federal safety regulators to the possible danger, Takata executives discounted the results and ordered the lab technicians to delete the testing data from their computers and dispose of the airbag inflaters in the trash, they said.
The secret tests, which have not been previously disclosed, were performed after normal work hours and on weekends and holidays during summer 2004 at Takata’s American headquarters in Auburn Hills, Mich., the former employees said.
That was four years before Takata, in regulatory filings, says that it first tested the problematic airbags. The results from the later tests led to the first recall over airbag rupture risks in November 2008.
Today, 11 automakers have recalled more than 14 million vehicles worldwide because of the rupture risks. Four deaths have been tied to the defect, which can cause the airbag’s steel canister to crack and explode into pieces when the device deploys in a crash. The airbags are inflated by means of a propellant, based on a common compound used in fertilizer, that is encased in the canister, which together are known as the inflater.
Complaints received by regulators about various automakers blame Takata airbags for at least 139 injuries, including 37 people who reported airbags that ruptured or spewed metal or chemicals.
Takata is one of the world’s largest suppliers of airbags, accounting for about one-fifth of the global market.
The former Takata employees, who between them had four decades of experience at the company, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of continuing ties to Takata. They said they were speaking up because of concerns that their former employer was not being forthright about the defective airbags.
“All the testing was hush-hush,” one former employee said. “Then one day, it was, ‘Pack it all up, shut the whole thing down.’ It was not standard procedure.”
A spokesman for Takata, Alby Berman, declined to comment on the disclosure of the testing.
OPEN Graphic
Graphic: Takata Airbag Recalls: Affected Vehicles
In the past, a spokesman for Honda said it was assured by Takata in 2004 that the episode in Alabama, which involved a 2002 Honda Accord, was an anomaly.
On Thursday, a Honda spokesman, Chris Martin, said in a statement, “This is a serious allegation about actions taken by Takata. It is our intention to determine whether anyone at Honda has any evidence that these claims are credible.”
Separately, materials reviewed by The New York Times cast doubt on Takata’s claims to federal regulators that it had resolved manufacturing and quality control problems with its airbag propellant in the early 2000s. Takata has said, in regulatory filings, that by November 2002, it had ensured that there was “proper handling” of the propellants at a factory in Moses Lake, Wash., where it had traced problems with the rupturing airbags.
But as recently as April 2009, Takata engineers scrambled to repair a flaw in a machine at another factory in Monclova, Mexico, that made the airbag propellant more volatile, according to materials from a company presentation given that year.
Two former quality-control managers at the company’s main distribution center in Texas, moreover, described in interviews a series of quality problems that arose as the company raced to meet a surge in demand for its airbags.
The Times reviewed internal Takata documents, emails, photos, videos and regulatory filings. Emails show workers raising concerns that airbag units were being delivered to automakers wet or damaged because of transportation mishaps. Closed-circuit television footage shows forklifts dropping stacks of the airbag units.
Danger in the Steering Wheel
Eleven carmakers, including Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Mazda, Ford, Chrysler and BMW, have recalled more than 14 million cars worldwide, including more than 11 million in the United States, to fix a defect in airbags made by the Takata Corporation. Some have ruptured, sending metal fragments into the car. At least four deaths and more than 30 injuries have been linked to the problem.
INFLATER/CANISTER
PROPELLANT
Cutaway view
INFLATER/CANISTER
STEERING WHEEL
AIRBAG
HOW IT WORKS:
Inside the canister, pellets of a propellant based on ammonia nitrate, a common compound used in fertilizer, are ignited and generate the nitrogen gas that inflates the airbag in a fraction of a second.
THE PROBLEM:
Takata has said manufacturing problems, together with exposure to moisture in cars in humid regions, can cause the propellant to degrade. This can make the propellant burn too strongly when the airbag is deployed, rupturing the inflater and sending metal fragments into the car’s interior and injuring the driver or passengers.
The dropped airbags were not always properly inspected for damage, especially in the early 2000s, according to the former quality-control managers who said they later pushed for stricter controls at the facility. The two spoke on the condition of anonymity because of fear of retribution.
Takata is facing renewed scrutiny for its handling of the defective airbags, which The Times reported in September had been the subject of a short-lived investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that was closed in 2010 without any enforcement action. The federal agency has now reopened its investigation into Takata, a House committee has asked the Government Accountability Office to conduct its own investigation, and federal prosecutors in Manhattan have also taken an interest.
“Claims such as these have raised additional concerns about Takata’s handling of airbag issues and are one of the reasons we’re compelling them to produce documents and answer questions, under oath,” the highway safety agency said.
The Takata spokesman, Mr. Berman, said, "Takata will continue to fully cooperate with the government investigation as we also support the needs of our customers.”
In Tokyo on Thursday, the company’s chief financial officer apologized broadly for the problems caused by the defective airbags, while the company announced that legal uncertainty and rising recall costs would result in a larger-than-expected quarterly loss.
“We don’t know at this point how things will play out,” said Yoichiro Nomura, the chief financial officer.
Photo
A Takata distribution center in Texas. Former employees say quality problems arose as the company tried to fill demand for airbags.
The most recent death linked to the airbags involved an accident in a suburban Los Angeles parking lot last year. Hai Ming Xu, 47, was killed by an airbag that deployed explosively in his 2002 Acura TL.
The police in Alhambra, Calif., initially treated the case as a homicide because of the nature of his injuries, before an autopsy suggested the wounds were caused by the airbag, according to a Los Angeles County Coroner’s report. The report concluded that extensive lacerations on Mr. Xu’s face came from “a metallic portion” of the airbag inflater that “hit the deceased on the face as it deployed.” The report also said tears had been discovered in the airbag.
The first known rupture of a Takata airbag occurred in Alabama in 2004, according to Honda. The inflater that ruptured in the Accord and injured the car’s driver that year “looked like it had exploded, and had a hole punched out of the side of the canister,” said one of the former Takata lab employees who examined the airbag.
Takata and Honda have declined to disclose further details of that accident, which ended in a settlement between the automaker and the driver, according to Honda.
Behind the scenes, however, the former Takata lab employees said, the manufacturer wanted to know more. The tests on the 50 airbags were supervised by Al Bernat, then Takata’s vice president for engineering, they said, and were unknown to all but a small group of people, that included lab technicians, fabricators and engineers. The employees said that they did not know under whose authority Mr. Bernat was operating.
The tests’ results worried the technicians: Two of the airbag inflaters Takata had retrieved from the junkyards showed cracks and the start of “rapid disassembly” during the tests, Takata’s preferred term for explosion, according to the two people. They said Takata engineers at the time theorized that a problem with the welding of the inflater’s canister, intended to hold the airbag’s explosives, made its structure vulnerable to splitting and rupturing. The two people said engineers designed prototypes for possible fixes, including a second canister to strengthen the unit.
But after three months, they said, the testing was ordered halted. The lab employees were also instructed that all data, including video and computer backups, be destroyed. Inflaters and prototypes of fixes were also to be disassembled and disposed of in a scrap-metal Dumpster, the senior lab employee said. No explanation was offered, the employee said, though the order was not considered surprising given the secret nature of the testing.
As for the two problematic airbag inflaters, Mr. Bernat, the supervisor, told people at the time that they were not significant because they had been retrieved from cars with cracked windshields and were likely “corrupted by weather,” according to the two former employees.
Reached at his home in Rochester Hills, Mich., Mr. Bernat declined to comment and referred questions to his former employer. Takata also declined to comment.
As automakers have recalled the airbags in recent years, Takata has suggested that weather plays a significant role in making its airbags prone to rupture. Takata said humidity could hurt the stability of the airbag’s explosives.
In explaining the defect, the company has also pointed to manufacturing flaws involving the airbags’ explosive, or propellant, including improper exposure to moisture, and problems with a machine that presses propellant powder into tablets. Takata has said both troubles were corrected in the early 2000s.
But the internal documents suggest Takata engineers scrambled as late as 2009 to repair a machine at its Monclova plant that pressed explosive propellant powder into pellets after “inflaters tested from multiple propellant lots showed aggressive ballistics,” according to the internal presentation in June 2009.
Two former quality-control managers at the company’s main distribution center in Texas, moreover, described in interviews a series of quality problems that arose as the company raced to meet a surge in demand for its airbags.
The Times reviewed internal Takata documents, emails, photos, videos and regulatory filings. Emails show workers raising concerns that airbag units were being delivered to automakers wet or damaged because of transportation mishaps. Closed-circuit television footage shows forklifts dropping stacks of the airbag units.
Eleven carmakers, including Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Mazda, Ford, Chrysler and BMW, have recalled more than 14 million cars worldwide, including more than 11 million in the United States, to fix a defect in airbags made by the Takata Corporation. Some have ruptured, sending metal fragments into the car. At least four deaths and more than 30 injuries have been linked to the problem.
INFLATER/CANISTER
PROPELLANT
Cutaway view
INFLATER/CANISTER
STEERING WHEEL
AIRBAG
HOW IT WORKS:
Inside the canister, pellets of a propellant based on ammonia nitrate, a common compound used in fertilizer, are ignited and generate the nitrogen gas that inflates the airbag in a fraction of a second.
THE PROBLEM:
Takata has said manufacturing problems, together with exposure to moisture in cars in humid regions, can cause the propellant to degrade. This can make the propellant burn too strongly when the airbag is deployed, rupturing the inflater and sending metal fragments into the car’s interior and injuring the driver or passengers.
The dropped airbags were not always properly inspected for damage, especially in the early 2000s, according to the former quality-control managers who said they later pushed for stricter controls at the facility. The two spoke on the condition of anonymity because of fear of retribution.
Takata is facing renewed scrutiny for its handling of the defective airbags, which The Times reported in September had been the subject of a short-lived investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that was closed in 2010 without any enforcement action. The federal agency has now reopened its investigation into Takata, a House committee has asked the Government Accountability Office to conduct its own investigation, and federal prosecutors in Manhattan have also taken an interest.
“Claims such as these have raised additional concerns about Takata’s handling of airbag issues and are one of the reasons we’re compelling them to produce documents and answer questions, under oath,” the highway safety agency said.
The Takata spokesman, Mr. Berman, said, "Takata will continue to fully cooperate with the government investigation as we also support the needs of our customers.”
In Tokyo on Thursday, the company’s chief financial officer apologized broadly for the problems caused by the defective airbags, while the company announced that legal uncertainty and rising recall costs would result in a larger-than-expected quarterly loss.
“We don’t know at this point how things will play out,” said Yoichiro Nomura, the chief financial officer.
Photo
A Takata distribution center in Texas. Former employees say quality problems arose as the company tried to fill demand for airbags.
The most recent death linked to the airbags involved an accident in a suburban Los Angeles parking lot last year. Hai Ming Xu, 47, was killed by an airbag that deployed explosively in his 2002 Acura TL.
The police in Alhambra, Calif., initially treated the case as a homicide because of the nature of his injuries, before an autopsy suggested the wounds were caused by the airbag, according to a Los Angeles County Coroner’s report. The report concluded that extensive lacerations on Mr. Xu’s face came from “a metallic portion” of the airbag inflater that “hit the deceased on the face as it deployed.” The report also said tears had been discovered in the airbag.
The first known rupture of a Takata airbag occurred in Alabama in 2004, according to Honda. The inflater that ruptured in the Accord and injured the car’s driver that year “looked like it had exploded, and had a hole punched out of the side of the canister,” said one of the former Takata lab employees who examined the airbag.
Takata and Honda have declined to disclose further details of that accident, which ended in a settlement between the automaker and the driver, according to Honda.
Behind the scenes, however, the former Takata lab employees said, the manufacturer wanted to know more. The tests on the 50 airbags were supervised by Al Bernat, then Takata’s vice president for engineering, they said, and were unknown to all but a small group of people, that included lab technicians, fabricators and engineers. The employees said that they did not know under whose authority Mr. Bernat was operating.
The tests’ results worried the technicians: Two of the airbag inflaters Takata had retrieved from the junkyards showed cracks and the start of “rapid disassembly” during the tests, Takata’s preferred term for explosion, according to the two people. They said Takata engineers at the time theorized that a problem with the welding of the inflater’s canister, intended to hold the airbag’s explosives, made its structure vulnerable to splitting and rupturing. The two people said engineers designed prototypes for possible fixes, including a second canister to strengthen the unit.
But after three months, they said, the testing was ordered halted. The lab employees were also instructed that all data, including video and computer backups, be destroyed. Inflaters and prototypes of fixes were also to be disassembled and disposed of in a scrap-metal Dumpster, the senior lab employee said. No explanation was offered, the employee said, though the order was not considered surprising given the secret nature of the testing.
As for the two problematic airbag inflaters, Mr. Bernat, the supervisor, told people at the time that they were not significant because they had been retrieved from cars with cracked windshields and were likely “corrupted by weather,” according to the two former employees.
Reached at his home in Rochester Hills, Mich., Mr. Bernat declined to comment and referred questions to his former employer. Takata also declined to comment.
As automakers have recalled the airbags in recent years, Takata has suggested that weather plays a significant role in making its airbags prone to rupture. Takata said humidity could hurt the stability of the airbag’s explosives.
In explaining the defect, the company has also pointed to manufacturing flaws involving the airbags’ explosive, or propellant, including improper exposure to moisture, and problems with a machine that presses propellant powder into tablets. Takata has said both troubles were corrected in the early 2000s.
But the internal documents suggest Takata engineers scrambled as late as 2009 to repair a machine at its Monclova plant that pressed explosive propellant powder into pellets after “inflaters tested from multiple propellant lots showed aggressive ballistics,” according to the internal presentation in June 2009.
Photo
Yoichiro Nomura, Takata’s chief financial officer, apologized on Thursday for the problems caused by the defective airbags.Credit Thomas Peter/Reuters
The internal materials and interviews with the former quality-control managers also suggest that quality control problems at......
PLEASE READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE AND VIEW THE VIDEO ON THIS LINK:
This undated photo provided by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety shows a crash test of a 2002 Honda CR-V, one of the models subject to a recall to repair faulty air bags. (via The Associated Press)
The New York Times, in a story posted online Thursday evening, reports that the manufacturer in the middle of a massive recall of dangerous airbags secretly conducted tests that revealed the problem 10 years ago, according to two former employees involved in the tests. The airbags have ruptured in some cases, sending shrapnel into the passenger compartments of cars. The 2004 tests revealed cracking of the steel inflaters, which could lead to rupture, the former employees told the Times. But instead of alerting the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, executives of the manufacturer, Takata Corp., ordered the testing data deleted, the Times reports the former employees said. The Times says:
The secret tests, which have not been previously disclosed, were undertaken after normal work hours and on weekends and holidays during summer 2004 at Takata's American headquarters in Auburn Hills, Mich., the former employees said. That was four years before Takata, in regulatory filings, says that it first tested the problematic airbags. The results from the later tests led to the first recall over airbag rupture risks in November 2008.
The problems with the airbags have led to the recall of nearly 8 million airbags in the United States, involving more than a dozen manufacturers. Takata makes about 22 percent of the airbags used in U.S. cars.
U.S. safety regulators are ordering Japanese auto supplier Takata Corp. to provide more information about air bags that can explode and shoot shrapnel toward drivers and passengers. The order sent Thursday makes 36 separate requests for information on production mistakes, lawsuit settlements and reports of deaths or injuries that the Tokyo-based company has received. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration also wants to know how many replacement parts Takata can make each day and what it has discussed with automakers and competitors.
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