A report released Monday by the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation says defective air bag maker Takata Corp may have put its profits ahead of safety.
The Japanese automobile parts company has come under investigation after its defective air bags discharged shrapnel that has been found responsible for eight deaths and more than 100 injuries over more than 10 years. The report says Takata should have been aware of safety concerns as early as 2001, but did not release its first recall on its air bags until 2008 and continually ignored safety concerns.
The Senate report, compiled by the Democratic staff on the Commerce committee, highlights internal emails that suggest “Takata may have prioritized profit over safety by halting global safety audits for financial reasons.” An email from Takata’s senior vice president, dated April 2011, said “global safety audits had stopped for financial reasons for last 2 years.”
A number of emails in the committee’s report spotlight concerns that employees voiced about the safety of the air bags.
A manager at Takata said quality checks were being ignored. “The whole situation makes me sick,” he wrote.
A supervisor at the company’s plant in Monclova, Mexico, expressed concern regarding the air bags’ improperly welded inflators.
“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,” he wrote in a March 2011 email to a Takata engineer.
Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., said the report showed a lack of concern from Takata.
“The more evidence we see, the more it paints a troubling picture of a manufacturer that lacked concern,” said Nelson, the committee’s top Democrat.
While the report highlights Takata’s wrongdoing, it also places blame on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for not taking swift enough action in investigating the corporation.
“Similarly, had NHTSA promptly undertaken more aggressive steps to investigate the Takata airbag ruptures, it is possible that this defect could have been addressed years earlier,” the report concludes.
The report was released one day before the Commerce Committee will hold a hearing regarding the defective Takata air bags and vehicle safety efforts undertaken by the NHTSA. Mark Rosekind, administrator of the NHTSA, and Kevin Kennedy, an executive with Takata, are scheduled to testify.
