The confirmation of a casualty caused by a faulty air bag inflator delivered by Takata Corporation in Malaysia has determined Honda to extend its car recall on the issue, the New York Times reports. The manufacturer’s latest recall – its tenth over the same defect – covers several models sold between 2002 and 2008, including the Honda That’s, the Fit Aria, the Fit Saloon, the 5 City, the Fit, the Jazz and Civic models sold across Japan, China, the Asia-Pacific region and Europe.
Honda confirmed on Thursday that the driver of one of its cars died after the Takata-made airbag exploded. The fatal accident happened in Malaysia on July 27th, and involved a pregnant woman. The car crashed into another vehicle, when the driver’s SRS airbag deployed abnormally, killing the driver on the spot. This was the fifth death linked to the use of faulty air bag inflators worldwide, and the first one outside the United States.
The case has triggered a new recall of about 170,000 Honda vehicles in Asia and Europe. It underscores the size of the quality control problems at Takata, the manufacturer of the faulty air bag deployment system, as this faulty system was manufactured in a Takata factory in Georgia. Those linked to the previous recalls were all manufactured in the company’s Washington State and Mexico plants. Takata has confirmed that some of the air bag inflators recovered from the recalled Honda vehicles were indeed faulty, at the risk of rupturing when deployed. The company has assured the public of its full cooperation in the recalls, and has promised to strengthen its quality control policies and to do everything to regain public trust.
Since the first reports about the discovery of the faulty part Honda has issued 10 recalls, affecting 6.2 million vehicles worldwide. The total number of recalls over Takata’s inflators has reached 14.3 million, affecting many other well known car brands like Nissan, BMW, Chrysler or Toyota.