Sources: Airbag Maker Destroyed Test Evidence

Workers say Takata conducted secret tests in 2004
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 7, 2014 11:21 AM CST
Sources: Airbag Maker Destroyed Test Evidence
Child seats, manufactured by Takata Corp. are displayed at a Toyota Motor Corp.'s showroom in Tokyo Thursday, Nov. 6, 2014.   (AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi)

Takata knew its airbags were at risk of exploding and sending metal debris at drivers years before it issued a recall, two unnamed former employees tell the New York Times. In fact, then-vice president for engineering Al Bernat witnessed airbag inflaters crack during secret tests at the Japanese company's US headquarters in Auburn Hills, Mich., in 2004, the workers say. As they tell it, some 50 airbags were sourced from cars in scrapyards and tested during off-hours. Two airbags' steel inflaters cracked during that testing, and engineers started working on prototypes of fixes. But three months later, the secret effort was axed, they say: "All the testing was hush-hush. Then one day, it was, 'Pack it all up, shut the whole thing down.' It was not standard procedure."

Further, they say all prototypes and video and computer data of the testing was ordered destroyed. Bernat had no comment for the Times, but the former workers say he brushed off the two damaged inflaters as having been "corrupted by weather" because they were taken from cars with cracked windshields. The company's first recall over airbag rupture risks came in 2008. Since then, some 14 million vehicles have been recalled; four deaths and 139 injuries have been blamed on the company's airbags. The New York Times' report digs into other alleged quality-control issues at Takata. Read the full piece here. (More Takata stories.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X