Takata Corp. overlooked internal signs of defective air bags for
years and at one point halted global safety audits, according to a
congressional report, ratcheting up pressure on the Japanese
supplier before a Tuesday Senate hearing.
The report—strongly disputed by Takata—was written by Senate
Commerce Committee staff for the panel's ranking Democrat, Sen.
Bill Nelson of Florida, and cites employee emails sounding alarms
about safety and quality lapses for years before vehicles were
recalled.
It also raises questions about whether "an unknown number of
replacement parts" for defective air bags are safe, the committee's
minority staff said. The report said Takata "should have been
aware" of lapses in manufacturing plants as early as 2001, and that
the company knew of three serious safety matters tied to faulty
air-bag inflaters in the first half of 2007. But a recall wasn't
issued until November 2008, the report says.
Problems eventually surfaced in Takata air bags prone to
rupturing and spraying shrapnel in vehicles after their propellants
degraded over time. The defect has been linked to at least eight
deaths and more than 100 injuries world-wide and led auto makers to
fix nearly 34 million vehicles in the largest automotive recall in
U.S. history.
The 45-page report comes a day before Takata's North American
executive vice president, Kevin Kennedy, is set to testify before
the full Senate Commerce Committee. He previously faced skeptical
House lawmakers alarmed that the company still uses ammonium
nitrate in air-bag inflaters, a chemical linked to deadly
explosions.
"The report contains a number of inaccuracies based largely on
old media articles that Takata has previously refuted, and emails
that are taken out of context and characterized in ways that create
a false impression," a Takata spokesman said in a statement.
The report also faults federal auto-safety regulators for
failing to promptly investigate Takata air bags. The Transportation
Department's inspector general, who just released a report
criticizing the regulators at the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration, is also set to testify Tuesday, along with the
NHTSA chief Mark Rosekind. Mr. Rosekind has said the agency is
ready to implement improvement recommendations from the inspector
general.
Senate Commerce staffers said they examined about 13,000 Takata
emails as part of their report. In one 2011 email exchange cited by
the report, a supervisor at the company's Monclova, Mexico, plant
refers to improperly welded air-bag inflaters and writes: "We
cannot be faced with findings/defects of this sort and NOT do
ANYTHING. A part that is not welded=one life less, which shows we
are not fulfilling the mission."
In response, a quality engineer says, "We are in a very critical
situation because of the most recent problems we have detected on
the line. Situations like this can give rise to a Recall."
The report also said Takata stopped global safety audits between
2009 and 2011 for financial reasons. It goes on to detail an
internal 2011 audit of the Mexico plant ahead of a company safety
director's arrival to conduct an investigation that found "scales
with disconnected cables, energetic material on the floor, and
dispensers for energetic material on unidentified lines."
The safety director later faulted the plant for not properly
closing bags of ammonium nitrate and for storing scrapped or
contaminated propellant near good material, allowing for the
possibility of a mix-up. That audit also found materials dating
back to 2007 were found in an area not meant for long-term
storage.
Between February and March 2013, Takata learned of manufacturing
problems affecting propellant tablets with certain passenger-side
air-bag inflaters at the Mexico plant and another factory in Moses
Lake, Wash.
Global audits referenced in the emails "relate to the safe
handling by employees of pyrotechnic materials—they were not, as
the report implies, related to product quality or safety," the
Takata spokesman said. The company "conducts regular reviews of
product quality and safety at Moses Lake and Monclova, and at no
time were those halted."
Takata and a separate group of 10 auto makers are conducting
probes in search of root causes of the air-bag ruptures. Humidity
and exposure to moisture have been cited as contributing causes.
But some older air bags rupture in such conditions, while others
don't, confounding investigators.
"Significant questions remain," the Senate minority report says,
citing air bags that perform differently depending on a vehicle's
make and model and when it was installed. The report's authors
added that some air bags perform properly even under adverse
conditions linked to rupturing.
Write to Mike Spector at mike.spector@wsj.com
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