Owners of certain 2006 Ford Rangers are being told to park their trucks immediately as part of a recall to repair faulty Takata airbags.
The 21st victim of exploding Takata airbags is causing Ford to warn owners of about 2,900 Ranger pickup trucks to park them immediately.
The victim, Steve Mollohan of Hedgesville, West Virginia, was killed July 1, when the airbag exploded in his 2006 Ford Ranger. Ford received notification of the fatality in mid-December and conducted an inspection of the truck on Dec. 27.
After looking into the incident, it was determined the inflator for the airbag was made on the same day as one that caused the death of a South Carolina man in 2015. This prompted the automaker to issue an urgent new recall in the U.S. and Canada for Rangers made on that day.
“We take this matter very seriously and are advising owners of these specific 2006 Ford Rangers to stop driving their vehicles so dealers can make repairs immediately,” Ford said in a statement Thursday.
(Takata airbag recall expanding again. Click Here for the story.)
Ford will repair the trucks at owners’ homes or tow them in for work, Elizabeth Weigandt, Ford spokeswoman, told the Associated Press. The company also will offer loaner vehicles. Weigandt stopped short of saying there was a particular problem with the manufacturing process on the day the airbag was produced.
“It’s critical that this message reaches all affected owners,” the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in a statement. “It is extremely important that all high-risk air bags are tracked down and replaced immediately.”
(Less than half of potentially deadly Takata airbags replaced. For the story, Click Here.)
Mollohan was the 21st person killed in a vehicle equipped with Takata airbags, which when they explode send pieces of plastic and metal shrapnel into the vehicle’s cabin. More than 180 people have been injured. The problem with the inflators has triggered the largest recall in U.S. history, involving more than 42 million vehicles and 69 million airbags.