NHTSA Order Makes Takata Preserve Air Bag Inflators Replaced Under Recall
Published at
bizoo_n/iStock/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) — U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx announced on Wednesday that the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration had issued an order requiring Takata Corporation to preserve air bag inflators replaced as part of the recall process for the company’s faulty air bags.
Foxx’s statement said the inflators would be kept “as evidence for both NHTSA’s investigation and private litigation cases.”
NHTSA also plans to upgrade its investigation into the faulty airbags to an engineering analysis, which the DOT described as “an important step in determining the actual cause of the air bag failures and the appropriateness of remedies, as well as determining whether Takata’s refusal to notify the agency of a safety defect violates federal safety laws or regulations.”
More than 17 million vehicles with Takata air bags have been recalled due to the risk of those air bags rupturing when they deploy.
Under the NHTSA order, Takata may not destroy or damage any air bag inflators except as necessary to test them, and 10 percent of the inflators must be set aside and made available to NHTSA and the DOT.
Follow @ABCNewsRadio
Copyright © 2015, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.