With the heat still coming down from federal authorities and lawmakers, Takata made a formal apology today at a U.S. senate hearing. However, two of these lawmakers chasing Takata for its involvement in the massive airbag-related recall that’s involved millions of vehicles so far also confirmed that Takata’s faulty airbag inflators have been responsible for a sixth death.
Takata has only acknowledged three fatalities, with the fourth and fifth still under investigation, and in his testimony, company senior vice president for global quality assurance Hiroshi Shimizu did not address the confirmation of a sixth death. In prepared remarks, Shimizu said that Takata is “deeply sorry and anguished about each of the reported instances in which a Takata air bag has not performed as designed and a driver or passenger has suffered personal injuries or death.”
Separate from the Senate hearing, Democratic Senators Ed Markey (Mass.) and Richard Blumenthal (Conn.) held their own press conference, where Arizona woman Kim Kopf said that her sister, Charlene Weaver, was killed in November 2003 while driving a 2004 Subaru Impreza with Takata airbags. This sixth death stood out because Arizona wasn’t included in the original recalls, which mostly involved cars registered in Gulf Coast states and other areas with high humidity.
Earlier in the week, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration applied pressure on Takata to launch a nationwide recall, after a non-fatal incident involving a 2007 Ford Mustang owner in North Carolina suggested that the issue may not be specific to high-humidity areas alone.