The shocking revelation this month that a young Caymanian doctor was killed by a defective airbag has brought home to many car owners in Cayman that they may be driving deadly machines.
With more than 65,000 vehicles registered in Cayman – many of which are models that are included in the world’s biggest safety recall – there could potentially be thousands of cars on local roads with the faulty airbags.
The Department of Vehicle and Drivers’ Licensing on 29 May – just days before the inquest into Dr. Amber Martinez’s death began – announced a policy to fail any vehicles that are subject to a worldwide recall of the Takata airbag and in which the defective equipment has not already been repaired or replaced.
The 2008 Honda Fit that 29-year-old Martinez was driving when she was killed by flying shrapnel from an exploding airbag was among the vehicles on the recall list. It had last been licensed by the DVDL in 2021. According to documentation presented at her inquest this month, it had been inspected annually and passed at least five times in Cayman.
The Compass has contacted the Ministry of Transport and the DVDL to ascertain exactly when they became aware of the Takata airbag recall and at what date the policy to fail cars with defective airbags was introduced, but a response has not yet been received.
The DVDL has published on its website a long list of vehicle makes and models that are subject to the recall. That list features more than 30 brands and almost 200 specific models of vehicles, including ones that are very common on local roads, such as Toyota RAV4s and Honda Civics, CR-Vs and Fits.
The years of the cars listed by the DVDL vary by model and make, with the earliest being from 2000 and the latest being 2017. However, local dealerships say models that date back as far as 1996 are also affected.
A ban introduced by government last year on the importation of vehicles that are more than eight years old means that any new cars coming on island will not have the potentially deadly airbags installed. But that does not address those already imported and on the roads.
The Martinez family – still mourning the loss of Amber, who had recently returned home from Turkey where she had just qualified as a doctor – in a statement released following the inquest, said they hoped their case would help drivers realise the potential danger they may be facing.
“We want to ensure that every member of the motoring public in all of the Cayman Islands (this also includes Cayman Brac and Little Cayman) are aware of the impact of the Takata Airbag recall and just how serious and dangerous this situation is. Your life or the life of a loved one could be at stake,” they said.
Noting the wide variety of vehicles impacted, the family urged “all motorists to check the VIN number/chassis numbers of their cars immediately to ensure that you are not driving a vehicle with a ‘ticking timebomb inside’”.
More than a 100 million airbags around the world are estimated to be subject to the recall, with about 67 million having been replaced.
Japanese company Takata was one of the largest airbag manufacturers in the world before it went bankrupt due to the massive number of injury claims against it.
What’s the problem?
As explained by an expert witness at the Martinez inquest, the problem with the airbag lies in the inflator device. An airbag is deployed by the use of a booster tube, which contains an ammonium nitrate-based propellant. Investigations found that the propellant lacked a chemical drying agent.
Because the booster tube is not hermetically sealed, in a hot-and-humid climate like that of the Cayman Islands, the propellant can soak up moisture, expand and become unstable. This can compromise the metal tube in which it is encased.
In Martinez’s case, that tube blew apart, shooting shrapnel from the bottom of the tube into the car’s steering column or floor and from the top of it into the driver’s throat and neck. The jury at the Coroner’s Court where the case was heard were told by expert Michael DiCicco that the force would have been similar to being shot by a bullet.
Similar fatal accidents involving Takata airbags have been reported 27 times in the United States.
The cause of Martinez’s death only came to light after her family hired lawyers and experts to help them get to the bottom of what had happened to her.
The forensic pathologist had found a plastic-and-metal fragment in her neck during the autopsy, but initially believed it was an incidental piece of material that had transferred to her body during the fire that engulfed the vehicle after it ran off the road at Queen’s Highway in East End on 21 Oct. 2022, or while her body was being removed from the vehicle afterwards.
That fragment was later examined by DiCicco, who previously worked for Takata, when he visited Cayman at the invitation of the family to help investigate Martinez’s death.
He was able to confirm that a number still visible on the fragment equated to a 2008 Takata airbag booster tube. This indicated that it belonged to the original airbag installed in the 2008 Honda Fit she had been driving.
This in turn led the pathologist to change his original findings and to determine that Martinez had died as a result of being struck by shrapnel from the exploding booster tube.
The Coroner’s Court jury delivered a verdict of death by misadventure, or accident, following the three-day hearing earlier this month.
This was the first time that a death related to a defective Takata airbag was recorded in the Cayman Islands.
Following the jury’s verdict, Coroner Angelyn Hernandez said she intended to send a report regarding defective airbags to the relevant local authorities to help prevent similar fatalities occurring.
Recalls date back to 2008
According to a timeline included in a report by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Association, the history of defective Takata airbags dates back to May 2004, when a driver-side airbag inflator ruptured in a Honda Accord in Alabama. Similar ruptures occurred again in 2007 and 2008 in Arizona, South Carolina, Puerto Rico and California.
In November 2008, Honda began the first Takata-related recall action to address the driver airbag ruptures. This involved the recall of only 3,940 2001 Honda Accords and Civics.
When more driver airbags ruptured in Honda vehicles in 2009, the car manufacturer expanded the recall, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Association opened a recall query. Several other recalls of specific Honda models followed, and then it was determined that airbags were malfunctioning and rupturing in other brands, including BMW, Mazda, Nissan and Toyota.
Most of those incidents occurred in states with hot, humid weather.
In June 2014, Takata and the various vehicle manufacturers agreed to begin parts-collection campaigns in Florida, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands “to verify the apparent connection between long-term exposure to high heat and humidity and the ruptures in Takata inflators that occurred despite a lack of any known defects that could be attributed to a mistake in the manufacturing process”.
Later, the geographic region of the recalls was expanded to include the southern coastal states of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia.
In May 2016, Takata agreed to recall another 35 million to 40 million of its airbag inflators, in addition to the 28.8 million previously recalled, making this the largest recall in history.
The following year, the airbag manufacturer pleaded guilty to criminal charges in a US court, and agreed to pay US$1 billion in penalties. This included a US$25 million fine, the establishment of a US$125 million victim compensation fund, and US$850 million to be paid to carmakers.
Since then, several other makes of cars have been found to contain the defective airbag and the recall now extends to at least 30 brands, some of which have issued ‘Do Not Drive’ warnings to car owners, including, most recently, Nissan in May this year.
Local recalls
Cayman’s DVDL, in its announcement regarding the Takata airbag recall at the end of May, urged car dealerships in Cayman to reach out to vehicle owners to inform them of the potential dangers of the airbags, and to replace any defective ones as soon as possible.
Honda dealership Car City has been trying to trace vehicles with the faulty airbags since 2016, and brought a team from the United States to help replace them in an ongoing campaign.
Taylor Foster, manager at Car City, says the Honda dealership has “checked tens of thousands of vehicles for the Takata recall since 2016”, and has replaced more than 3,500 inflators.
Dealerships have been replacing the defective inflators free of charge.
A factor that may put some owners off from checking if their airbags need replacing is the waiting time for parts.
One driver in Grand Cayman told the Compass, when she had her Toyota checked after reading about the Martinez case, she was informed that she may have to wait up to six months for the replacement part to arrive.
Though this driver was a customer at a different dealership, Foster acknowledges that there may be some wait time involved.
“We currently have over 500 airbag inflators in stock,” he said, “and we receive monthly shipments to maintain our inventory. If we have to order from scratch, it would normally take anywhere from four to eight weeks. This timeframe assumes that the part is not on international backorder, which could double the wait time.”
Foster added, “One of the main challenges we have faced is not only the sheer volume of inflators, but also the variety, with over 10 types of airbag inflators. For instance, a passenger inflator differs from a driver inflator and a [Honda] Fit inflator is different than an Accord.
“Compounding this issue are supply chain shortages and logistics issues that the world has recently experienced. Currently, only the customer with whom we have a service relationship is notified of the recall.”
This means that if a person buys a car from Car City, or any other dealership, and then sells the car to another person, the dealership would not have contact details for the new owner, unless that person then takes the car for a service or repair to that dealer. This hampers dealerships’ ability to proactively contact owners about recalls.
Vampt Motors, which deals in Toyotas and Fords, is another local dealership that is taking proactive action to inform car owners about the recall.
“We cannot stress enough the gravity of the Takata recall, which impacts 34 brands from 19 different automakers,” Greg Hall, Vampt Motors’ service manager for Ford and Toyota in the Cayman Islands, said in a statement.
He says he first began raising concerns about the Takata recall vehicles on Cayman 27’s Daybreak show in 2013.
“This is a straightforward fix, one that should not be a matter of life and death,” he said.
Vampt Motors’ parts manager Jason Hauck urged people to check their VIN numbers with their dealers as soon as possible to find out if they need to have the airbags replaced, rather than waiting for the date of their next vehicle inspection.
“If they fail the inspection due to the Takata recall, this also means the vehicle is not drivable until it gets the repair parts,” he said. “If we don’t know the VINs, we won’t have the parts in stock, and stocking can be very delayed even under emergency stocking parameters as these are HAZMAT regulated.”
This refers to shipping regulations of hazardous materials, such as the propellant in the inflators.
“We want to help save lives and get these parts, but we cannot do so if we don’t know the VINs that are actively on the island and need repair.”
How to get your vehicle checked
To check if your airbag is one of those subject to the recall, check your VIN number on your vehicle. This can be found stamped on the chassis of your vehicle, usually in the engine bag, or beneath the plastic trim around the driver- or passenger-door opening.
Your vehicle insurance documentation should also contain the VIN number.
Then, contact your local dealership and ask them to run a check on the VIN number to see if it is one of those that are subject to the recall.
Once this is confirmed, visit the dealership or make an appointment to have the faulty airbag replaced.
