In May 2015, Takata Corp., a Japanese company that makes airbags, announced that roughly 33.8 million vehicles might contain defective airbags that could explode with excessive force. Specifically, they can shoot metal shrapnel at passengers and cause serious injury or even death, sometimes when no airbag-deploying event has occurred. Takata also agreed to a consent order with the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) regarding its obligations in the recall process, which happens to be the largest auto recall in history. It additionally released four defect information reports regarding the details of the affected devices. On Sept. 1, 2015, the NHTSA estimate changed to 23.4 million.
Dozens of lawsuits against Takata have been filed in Florida federal courts. On February 12, 2016, a hearing in the case of injured Florida resident Patricia Mincey indicated that Takata’s own engineers discarded evidence that may have shown the defective airbag propellant as long as 16 years ago. The propellant includes a compound called ammonium nitrate, which was introduced into Takata models as early as 2000 and triggered failures during internal testing. Mincey was paralyzed when her Takata-manufactured airbag deployed defectively during a 2014 accident.