Volvo recalling 460K vehicles after death from airbag rupture

Volvo is recalling more than 460,000 vehicles globally because of faulty airbag inflators, which after prolonged exposure to heat and humidity could pose a mortal danger when activated. 

“The driver’s air bag inflator may explode during deployment,” the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said in a letter on the recall Monday. “An inflator explosion may result in sharp metal fragments striking the driver or other occupants, resulting in serious injury or death.” 

The recall covers S80 sedans made between 2001 to 2006, in which the problem has been seen primarily in the air bag inflators made by Japanese air bag maker Takata. In the U.S. alone, Volvo says it will recall 259,383 vehicles.  

Volvo found that the front airbag inflator became at risk of exploding due to “propellant degradation occurring after long-term exposure to high absolute humidity, high temperatures, and high temperature cycling,” according to the NHTSA letter. 

The letter adds that dealers will replace the driver’s air bag free of charge, while owner notification letters are expected to be mailed by November 29, 2021.

The latest recall is in addition to the one announced in Nov. 2020, following the death of an unidentified U.S. driver in a similar incident, NBC News reported.

The Justice Department has long harbored concerns about Takata. Investigators have previously accused Takata of concealing safety problems with its airbags and failing to report safety defects, which investigators believe the company was aware of as early as 2000. 

In a January 2017 statement, Andrew Weissmann, the former chief of the Fraud Section of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, said Takata “repeatedly and systematically falsified critical test data related to the safety of its products, putting profits and production schedules ahead of safety.”

This mass recall comes at a time when Volvo has pledged to make all of its cars electric by 2030, as well as going leather-free.