Ford announced on Tuesday that it's recalling almost 400,000 Ranger pickups from the 2004 through 2006 model years in the U.S. and Canada, because the driver's airbag inflators can explode with enough force to cause life-threatening injuries.
The recall comes just days after the government announced that Joel Knight, 52, was killed in December when an inflator exploded and he was struck in the neck by metal shrapnel after his 2006 Ranger hit a cow in the road in South Carolina, according to The Globe and Mail.
Regulators have reported 10 deaths globally, including nine in the United States, linked to defective air bags with Takata inflators. The inflators use chemical ammonium nitrate to cause a small explosion that create a gas to inflate an air bag. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, however, if exposed to high heat and humidity the chemical can deteriorate over time and burn too fast, blowing apart a metal canister designed to contain the explosion, and sending shrapnel into the vehicle, according to Reuters.
Ford is the first automaker to announce a recall after the NHTSA said on Friday it would expand recalls by about 5 million vehicles, and in total, the NHTSA expects that 28 million airbag inflators in as many as 24 million U.S. vehicles will have been recalled.
"Many millions of these vehicles are relatively new," said NHTSA spokesman Gordon Trowbridge, "and given what we know about the role of age in degrading the ammonium nitrate propellant, are unlikely to present a rupture risk for some years," according to The NY Times.
"If NHTSA believes a vehicle presents an unreasonable risk to safety, the agency would seek a recall," he said.
