Takata Corporation has stated that it will continue producing airbags that utilize ammonium nitrate propellant, though the design of the driver-side air bag inflators are set to be redesigned. A defect found in the company's airbags has triggered the most massive recall in U.S. auto-safety history.
Kevin Kennedy, executive vice president of North America for Takata Corp., said in a written statement for a U.S. House hearing on Tuesday that the percentage of air bag inflators that are likely problematic is "extremely small." Despite the small number however, Kennedy states that the company is replacing all of them, according to CBS News.
In an agreement with U.S. regulators, Takata Corp. declared a record 33.8 million airbags as defective. They may simply use inflators made by other suppliers, according to Reuters.
"We are working with our automaker partners to transition to newer versions of driver inflators in our replacement kits, or inflators made by other suppliers that do not contain ammonium nitrate propellant," Kennedy said in his written statement.
Takata believes the company is "confident" the replacement driver-side inflators with ammonium nitrate are already safe, according to Reuters.
Kennedy adds that there have been fewer than nine failures causing air bag rupture in the U.S. out of 100,000 air bag deployments, as reported by CBS News. Most of these incidents occurred in places with high heat and humidity. However, the numbers are still too high.
"It is unacceptable to us and incompatible with our safety mission for even one of our products to fail to perform as intended and to put people at risk," he said.
Mark Lillie, a retired chemical engineer who left Takata in 1999, has stated that the risks of ammonium nitrate have been raised before.
"I literally said if we go forward with this, someone will be killed," he said.
Takata's agreement with the NHTSA has added 18 million more air bags to the existing recall, covering both the driver's and the passenger's side, as reported by CBS News.
