Call for airbag action

The French government has requested that all Citroen C3 and DS3 vehicles subject to a Takata airbag recall be taken off the roads after reports that a woman died after her airbag was triggered.

It says vehicles built between 1998 and 2019 are likely to be subject to a call-back campaign over faulty airbags, which can explode when they are deployed. The explosion can throw metal fragments and cause serious injury or death.

French media outlets have reported that a woman died and a teenager was injured after an airbag deployment earlier this month. 

The woman, reported to be in her 40s, scraped the car against the crash barrier on a motorway in Reims on June 11 while trying to avoid an HGV. 

This activated the car’s Takata airbag. It is thought the collision caused the malfunction of the airbag’s ammonium nitrate gas generator, sending pieces of metal throughout the car. 

Another person died in March after the deployment of a faulty airbag in the French Caribbean territory of Guadeloupe, reports Radio France.

Takata, the company at the centre of the car industry’s biggest-ever product recall, filed for bankruptcy in 2017. At the time, its US operations said Takata had recalled or expected to call back about 125 million vehicles worldwide by 2019.