The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has mandated Ford to recall three million cars from six different models due to airbag defects that killed 27 people so far including a teen whose throat was slit by shrapnel.
The victims included 18 Americans. They died after being injured by debris from a metal canister that shattered into pieces under airbags inflators’ force.
That was the case of 17-year-old Huma Hanif of Richmond, Texas, whose Honda Civic with the detective airbag sent metal and plastic debris right to her neck after she rear-ended another vehicle.
“I tried to hold where the blood was coming out, but I feel like there was not a whole lot I could do,” a witness of the 2016 incident said.
The injured people in America are estimated at hundreds while worldwide, 400 victims sustained injuries with the Takata airbags.
The six models subjected to the recalls are the Edge, the Fusion, the Lincoln MKX, the Lincoln Zephyr/MKZ, the Mercury Milan, and the Ranger. The company has a deadline of 30 days to inform the owners of the recall.
“Given the severity of the consequence of propellant degradation in these airbag inflators – the rupture of the inflator and metal shrapnel sprayed at vehicle occupants – a finding on inconsequentiality to safety demands extraordinarily robust and persuasive evidence,” the NHTSA said.