Coroner: Driver Likely Unaware of Takata Airbag Recall in Fatal Incident

SINGAPORE: A driver who died after a defective airbag deployed and shot a metal piece into his head was "highly unlikely" to have known that the car was subject to a recall exercise, the coroner found on Wednesday (Jan 21). The vehicle, which was imported and sold by now-defunct parallel importer company Hong Sin Motors, was part of a 2015 recall exercise due to the defective Takata airbag. It was known to have resulted in injuries and fatalities due to the expulsion of metal components. The company appeared to have failed to inform the Land Transport Authority (LTA) that the car was subject to this exercise, and it is unknown if Hong Sin Motors had informed the car's owner at that time. The coroner said it was "highly unlikely" that Mr Michael Ong Kong Meng, 57, was aware of the exercise when he bought the car in July 2021. He added that there appeared to have been no rectification works done to repair or replace the defective Takata airbag. Mr Ong was driving the Honda vehicle along the Seletar Expressway in 2022 when he was involved in a chain collision. On impact with one of the vehicles in the six-car pileup, the airbag deployed and ejected a metal piece into Mr Ong's head. FIRST SUCH FATALITY In his findings ruling the death a road traffic-related accident, State Coroner Adam Nakhoda said this was the first time in Singapore that a projectile from a defective airbag resulted in a fatality. While the "vast majority" of about 198,800 vehicles that were affected by Takata airbag recall exercises have had the issue rectified as of June 2024, the coroner urged vehicle owners to refer to the list of affected vehicles in an Aug 4, 2016 LTA news release to check if their vehicle is affected. "If an owner is aware that their vehicle is one of the vehicles affected, and is unsure if the airbag has been rectified, I will urge them to clarify with the authorised distributor, parallel importer, the company that sold the vehicle, and or the OneMotoring website to check whether their vehicle needs to be rectified," he said. The coroner stated that manufacturers have an ongoing relationship with authorised distributors in Singapore and will be able to inform them of any recall exercise affecting sold vehicles. The distributors will be able to comply with the law by informing LTA and the owner of the affected vehicle of the recall exercise, even if it had been resold to another owner. However, this process is more complex with vehicles brought in by parallel importers, which may not have direct links with the manufacturer and may not be informed of recall exercises. Parallel importers will have to exercise their own due diligence to determine if there have been any recalls affecting the makes and models of vehicles they have sold, said the coroner. LTA does not have a statutory responsibility for issuing notifications about the recalls, but assumes a facilitative role, regularly scanning for recalls and checking for vehicles with corresponding chassis numbers. If there are such cases, LTA said it would proactively notify parallel importers and require them to verify if the vehicle is affected. If the parallel importer fails to respond to LTA, hard copy letters will be sent by registered post. However, the coroner said there is a possible gap in this process if the parallel importer is no longer in business, as was the case here. The importer can also ignore the notification or fail to do its due diligence and it is possible that the vehicle owner will not know that rectification works are required. Therefore, the coroner urged vehicle owners to do their own checks if their vehicles are subject to recall notices by accessing LTA's webpage. The coroner said Mr Ong was a healthy man whose death was “clearly untimely and tragic”. “It was all the more tragic because it was caused by the device, a motorcar’s defective driver’s side airbag, that was designed to reduce injury and save life during road traffic accidents,” he said. He gave his condolences to Mr Ong’s widow, who attended the hearing with a lawyer. The court heard in a previous session in September that 198,800 vehicles with the airbag issue have been recalled, with a completion rate of 94 per cent. CNA has contacted LTA for more information on the remaining 6 per cent since then.