BMW issues recall after Takata airbags blow apart, hurl shrapnel at drivers

“It’s a troubling issue and it makes us wonder, you know, do we need to go back to the drawing board and have some federal regulations that apply to how airbags are designed,” Brooks said.

Story By Justin Gray
December 5, 2023

Channel 2 Action News has learned that a new recall has been issued involving more Takata airbags.

We have been reporting on safety concerns with these airbags for a decade now.

Channel 2 consumer investigator Justin Gray learned the latest recall involves airbags that were not among the more than 60 million already found to be unsafe.

The new BMW recall of Takata airbags is small — fewer than 500 cars. But the same type of airbag inflator is in 30 million vehicles and for the past three years, federal regulators have had a formal investigation open into potential safety hazards with those millions of airbags.

And we’ve shown you the dangerous results in real-world crashes when that shrapnel ejects from a faulty airbag.

“I reached up to try to see where the blood was coming from, and my finger went inside of my throat. That’s when I knew I had a major problem,” Cedric Walton told us in 2015.

While more than 67 million faulty Takata airbags have been recalled, there are an additional 30 million in 200 vehicle models from 20 car and truck makers that since 2021 federal regulators at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration have been investigating.

Click here to view the full story from WSB Atlanta, Channel 2 Action News.