The US government’s transportation safety agency has demanded the recall of 67 million airbag inflators after finding they could rupture and injure motorists, CNBC reports.
In its letter (PDF) to auto supplier and airbag inflator designer ARC Automotive Inc, The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) listed nine incidents where someone in a car had been injured after an airbag inflator ruptured. The letter states that seven of those incidents took place in the US, and one of those led to a death.
One further incident outside the US led to a driver being killed. The letter criticized ARC for not making a “defect determination that would require a recall” of the airbag inflators the NHTSA deem to be faulty. “Air bag inflators that project metal fragments into vehicle occupants, rather than properly inflating the attached air bag, create an unreasonable risk of death and injury.”
The ARC airbag inflators in question were produced in the 18 year period before January 2018 and are found in General Motors, Chrysler-parent Stellantis, BMW, Hyundai Motor, Kia and other vehicles. As CNBC notes in its report, on Friday GM agreed to recall close to one million vehicles with the airbag inflators because a rupture in March led to a driver getting facial injuries.
ARC disagrees with the NHTSA’s initial investigative findings and in a response letter said it had tested 918 inflators and none had exploded or ruptured. The ARC said it believed “after nearly eight years of intensive scrutiny, none of [the car makers using its airbag inflators] has identified a systemic or prevalent defect across this inflator population.”
ARC further stated that it believes the incidents associated with its airbag inflators rupturing stemmed from “one-off” manufacturing anomalies that had already been fixed by carmakers through small-scale recalls, but added that it would continue to work with NHTSA and automakers to check and assess any ruptures.
