Takata Airbag Recall Update: In Japan, Nissan To Check For Defects Again After Passenger Injured In Collision

Nissan Motor Co. will be rechecking its vehicles in Japan for defects in airbags, after a woman was injured by one of the safety mechanisms during a collision in the Asian country last week, Reuters reported Monday. It is the latest development in the ongoing saga of Takata Corp. airbags, which have caused the largest product recall in U.S. history due to a tendency to spray shrapnel when they erupt with too much force.

The car involved in the accident was a 2006 X-Trail SUV, according to Reuters, which is a model included on a recall list earlier this year. However, when the car’s owners brought it in for an inspection, the vehicle was thought to be in fine condition.

Takata airbags have caused problems for years, and more than 30 million cars have been recalled worldwide since 2008, Reuters reported. The faulty airbag inflators have been linked to eight deaths and more than 100 injuries.

This past May, Nissan offered a recall to 320,000 owners, which led to 113,000 vehicle inspections. Of those, 102,000 were deemed fit for continued driving and returned to their owners, according to Reuters.

"We will contact the owners of those cleared vehicles to request that they bring in their vehicles for a second inspection," Tsutomu Miyashita, Nissan's general manager field quality assurance, said.

The passenger injured last week by the Takata airbag was treated in a hospital for injuries to her head and wrist, which Nissan said seemed to come from the shrapnel released by the deploying airbag. Following the recall earlier this year, Nissan had been testing individual cars for air leakage, which can cause an excess of moisture around the air bag’s seal, leading them to explode.

“We have been informed by Nissan about the incident, and we are in the process of confirming whether one of our airbags was the cause of the injury," a Takata spokeswoman told Reuters.

The Takata recall in May came after car companies had already announced millions of their vehicles could contain defective airbags. The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration had been calling on the company to issue its own product safety recall for months, and was fining Takata $14,000 per day before it announced the recall.