Earlier this week, we reported that the National Highway Traffic Safety administration had conclusively linked a tenth fatality to Takata’s poorly designed airbags. That could be the 11th death worldwide attributed to defective Takata inflators.
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Officials say numerous air-bag deaths and injuries have involved low-speed crashes that otherwise likely would have been survivable.
The U.S. 2007 Civic’s inflators haven’t been recalled yet in the U.S., but could be part of a larger recall announced last week by the government.
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Honda has previously recalled about 6.28 million vehicles in the United States for air bag inflators, a Honda spokesman said. NHTSA investigators, police and family representatives examined the vehicle on Friday morning and were able to confirm the death was due to an exploding air bag inflator, he said.
Takata reportedly said that newer vehicles remain under “investigation and could be subject to recall at a later date”. After receiving those notices, owners will be able to take their Rangers to Ford dealers, who will replace the driver-side airbag inflators at no charge.
On Wednesday, Takata filed paperwork detailing recalls of about 5.1 million vehicles made by Audi, BMW, Daimler Trucks, Honda, Mazda, Mercedes-Benz, Saab, Toyota and Volkswagen.
The vehicles involved in the US crashes have all spent time in humid regions.
On Tuesday, Ford said it would recall about 391,000 Ranger pickups because the driver’s air bag inflators can explode.
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It comes just days after the government announced that a SC man was killed when an inflator exploded in December. The truck struck a cow in the road and traveled off the road and hit a fence. The lawyer says Ford should have recalled the trucks sooner. Ford said in a statement that it was aware of one report of a death related to a Takata airbag explosive deployment.
