Death triggers air-bag probes in US, Canada

Associated Press

DETROIT

Auto-safety regulators in two countries are investigating another deadly air-bag problem that could affect up to 8 million vehicles.

Investigators in the U.S. and Canada are looking into a crash in the Canadian province of Newfoundland in which a woman was killed by an exploding air-bag inflator made by ARC Automotive Inc. of Knoxville, Tenn.

As many as 8 million ARC inflators are under scrutiny in the U.S., mainly in older cars, although it hasn’t been determined how many of those are defective. Although the results are similar, the ARC problem is different from one that resulted in the recall of 69 million inflators in the U.S. made by Takata Corp.

Authorities say the Canadian woman was killed July 8 when the ARC inflator ruptured and sent metal shrapnel into the passenger cabin of the Hyundai Elantra she was driving. Without the shrapnel injuries, the driver likely would have survived the low-speed crash, Canadian officials said. Now, investigators from both countries are trying to figure out what caused the inflator to blow apart.

The death raises more questions about the safety of air bags, which rely on explosions to fill bags that protect people in crashes. It also brought new urgency to a probe opened last year by the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration after an Ohio woman was injured by an ARC inflator. The U.S. safety agency upgraded its probe Thursday to an engineering analysis, a step closer to a recall.