The defective airbags produced by a now-bankrupt Japanese auto parts company, Takata Corporation, have been the cause of multiple deaths and injuries since 2003. These gruesome events have triggered the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to recall tens of millions of cars nationwide, which represents the largest safety recall in U.S. history.
When these airbags malfunction, the results are violent and sometimes deadly. Exploding with the sound of a shotgun blast, they can send debris flying toward the driver and passengers, inflicting damage like a landmine going off inside the car. Injuries include fractured skulls, punctures, and lacerations. Rather than saving lives, these airbags are putting lives at risk.
Here’s how an airbag is supposed to work. In the event of a collision, a sensor in the car detects a crash and sends a signal to the airbag to deploy. An ignitor heats up a solid propellant packed inside the airbag to start a chemical reaction, which releases a gas to inflate the airbag within about 100 to 200 milliseconds.
When a Takata airbag malfunctions, however, rather than inflating the airbag in a controlled, vented fashion, the airbag explodes instead, shooting shrapnel everywhere. These explosions can occur in any of the car’s airbags, including inside the steering wheel, inside the dashboard in front of the passenger and above the doors in the case of side-curtain airbags. Defective Takata airbags can even explode spontaneously, though according to a New York Times article, Takata’s term for these explosions is “rapid disassembly.”
Early on in the airbag industry, propellants used a compound called sodium azide. Unfortunately, the sodium azide-based propellants are unstable and can cause chemical burns and release toxic fumes. As an alternative, Takata began developing a new propellant using tetrazole, which they called “Envirosure.” They billed it as a safer, environmentally sound propellant than sodium azide, and began including these in vehicles produced in 1998. Tetrazole-based propellants are relatively expensive, however. So in 1999, Takata began developing an ammonium nitrate-based propellant, which it first used in vehicles beginning in 2001.
Ammonium nitrate is cheap, and it can be used to inflate airbags by releasing nitrogen gas, but it’s also unstable and has a tendency to explode. In fact, it was ammonium nitrate in fertilizer form that Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols acquired to source the explosive materials they used in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.
A combination of humidity, design, manufacturing, and handling problems have been blamed for the Takata airbag defects. The volatility of ammonium nitrate increases with exposure to humidity, which is likely a major factor in many explosions. Takata tried to introduce drying agents to reduce the moisture content inside their airbags, but experts are skeptical that this represents a real solution.
Consumers can check to see if their car is on the Takata airbag recall list by providing their VIN. If your car is on the list, schedule repairs as soon as possible, and consider minimizing your driving, carpooling in a safe vehicle, using public transportation or even renting a car.
