iStock/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — Japanese automotive airbag maker Takata, which has been implicated in more than a dozen deaths, may plead guilty to criminal misconduct as early as Friday.
The split-second deployment of an airbag is designed to cushion drivers and passengers involved in car accidents. But in at least 16 cases worldwide, malfunctioning airbag inflators from Takata have killed the people they were meant to save. The recall began with a relatively modest 14 million cars and trucks, and later expanded to 34 million that may have been equipped with faulty airbag inflators. More than a dozen automakers were using Takata airbags and inflators, which, investigators say, can explode and spray shrapnel in a collision.
A criminal probe has implicated Takata as the source of the defective parts and the company in expected pay $1 billion, with $125 million going to victims or their families.
Copyright © 2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
