Dangerous Takata airbags making way into used cars

DETROIT — A dangerous Takata airbag should have been recalled before going from a wrecked car to a salvage yard, eventually ending up in a 2002 Honda Accord and nearly killing a Las Vegas woman, a lawsuit alleges.

The Accord had been fixed up and sold in March 2016 to the family of Karina Dorado, a 19-year-old woman whose trachea was punctured by shrapnel spewed by the faulty airbag. The family claims it was never informed that the air bag was subject to a recall.

How that airbag got into the Accord is detailed in the lawsuit filed Friday in Nevada. It highlights the sometimes suspect world of auto parts recycling and shows how dangerous recalled parts can find their way into used cars that are sold to unsuspecting buyers. It’s unclear just how many faulty Takata inflators are being used in refurbished vehicles, but Honda, once Takata’s biggest customer, said it has bought 75,000 of them from salvage yards in the past two years to keep them off the road.

“It’s an unknown, which is kind of terrifying from a consumer perspective,” said Michael Brooks, chief counsel for the Center for Auto Safety. “There’s no good way to track these things.”

Takata uses ammonium nitrate to create a small explosion that inflates airbags in a crash. But the volatile chemical can deteriorate and burn too fast, blowing apart a metal inflator canister.