Honda Motor Co said on Friday it had confirmed a 16th US death has been tied to a faulty Takata airbag inflator. The Japanese automaker said that after a joint inspection Friday with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration it had confirmed a faulty airbag inflator was to blame for a June 2018 death of a driver after the crash of a 2002 Honda Civic in Buckeye, Arizona.
The defect, which leads in rare instances to airbag inflators rupturing and sending metal fragments flying, has prompted the largest automotive recall in US history and is tied to 14 US deaths in Honda vehicles and two in Ford Motor Co vehicles since 2009, reports Reuters.
The most recent confirmed death in the United States was the July 2017 death of a 34-year-old Florida woman.
Another seven deaths have been confirmed in Honda vehicles with faulty Takata airbag inflators in Malaysia, while a crash death in Australia in a Honda is still under investigation.
More than 290 injuries worldwide have been linked to Takata inflators that could explode. In total, 19 automakers are recalling more than 100 million potentially faulty inflators worldwide.
To date, 56 million inflators have been recalled in the United States in 41.6 million vehicles. Takata, which pleaded guilty to a felony charge of wire fraud to resolve a US Justice Department investigation, filed for bankruptcy protection in June 2017.
Earlier this month, Honda said it would recall another 1.2 million Honda and Acura vehicles in North America to replace defective Takata airbags on the driver’s side. The company became aware of the issue after a Honda Odyssey crash, where the front airbag deployed and injured the driver’s arm.