NHTSA orders recall of 67M deadly airbag inflators, company resists

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has demanded that ARC Automotive recall 67 million potentially defective airbag inflators used by at least 12 different automakers in the US. The inflators have been found to have a defect where in some cases the inflator ruptures when inflating, ejecting metal particles in the passenger compartment. NHTSA cites nine specific incidents that lead to bodily injury, including two that lead to fatal injuries. However, ARC Automotive disagrees with NHTSA's demand for a full recall, stating that the issues in defective inflators were "one-off" manufacturing anomalies that were addressed by automakers in specific recalls done in the past.