The fifth fatality linked to Takata air bags, and the first outside the United States, was disclosed earlier on Thursday. Honda Motor Co Ltd said a driver in Malaysia had died in July after being hit by shrapnel from a Takata air bag.
All five deaths have been in Honda cars. The Japanese carmaker, Takata's biggest customer, widened its recall for the defective air bags by another 170,000 vehicles globally, taking the total to nearly 10 million.
Separately, the U.S. Senate commerce committee is "likely" to hold a hearing next week to hear testimony from Takata executives on air bag defects and recalls, according to Senator Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat who is a committee member.
Defective Takata air bag inflators have been found to explode with dangerous force in accidents, sending shards of metal into the vehicle.
The U.S. federal prosecutors' investigation into the Japanese safety-parts maker had been previously reported, but Thursday's statement is the first indication that a seated grand jury was seeking evidence.
Takata disclosed the probe in a closed-door meeting with financial analysts, according to an account from one participant.
The participant said Takata had told the analysts it was not considering adding production lines to make replacement air bag inflators, explosive devices that allow air bags to inflate in a fraction of a second during a crash.
Takata also told analysts that it was making "constant improvements" to the chemical compound used in its inflators, but said they were not related to any defects or accidents.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has also issued a special order demanding documents and other evidence on air bag defects. Takata has until Dec. 1 to comply.
Since 2000, Takata has made more than 100 million inflators, according to industry estimates and company data. Since 2008, more than 17 million cars equipped with Takata air bags have been recalled, including more than 11 million in the United States.
In a statement posted Thursday on the company's website, Chief Executive Officer Shigehisa Takada apologized to customers and shareholders for the company's problems: "Our whole company will strengthen our quality management structure and work to prevent an incident from occurring again," Takada said.
In the United States on Thursday, Takata spokesman Alby Berman said the company was "cooperating fully with all aspects of the government investigation."
Separately, Takata disputed a recent New York Times report that it had failed to tell federal regulators that it had found signs of air bag defects in secret tests in 2004 in Michigan.
The company said it believed the Nov. 6 story "was based on serious misunderstandings of the facts." It said it was testing air bags for tears to cushions in their modules, not for inflator ruptures, as reported.
The fifth fatality linked to Takata air bags, and the first outside the United States, was disclosed earlier on Thursday. Honda Motor Co Ltd <7267.T> said a driver in Malaysia had died in July after being hit by shrapnel from a Takata air bag.
All five deaths have been in Honda cars. The Japanese carmaker, Takata's biggest customer, widened its recall for the defective air bags by another 170,000 vehicles globally, taking the total to nearly 10 million.- Reuters
Following are some key events leading to the recall of several million cars fitted with potentially defective air bags made by Japanese firm Takata Corp <7312.T>.
2008:
Nov 4 – Honda Motor <7267.T> recalls 4,000 Accords and Civics (2001 models) globally as Takata air bag inflators may produce excessive internal pressure causing them to rupture and spray metal fragments in the car.
2009:
May 27 – Oklahoma teen Ashley Parham dies when the air bag in her 2001 Honda Accord explodes, shooting metal fragments into her neck. Honda and Takata deny fault and settle for an undisclosed sum.
July 29 - Honda recalls 510,000 Civics, Accords and Acura 3.2 TL cars (2001-02 models) globally for potentially defective Takata air bags.
Dec 24 – Gurjit Rathore is killed in Virginia when the air bag in a 2001 Honda Accord explodes after a minor accident, severing arteries in her neck, court documents show. Her family sues Honda and Takata for more than $75 million in April 2011, claiming they knew of the air bag problems as early as 2004. Honda and Takata settle in January 2013 for $3 million, according to court documents.
2010:
Feb 9 – Honda recalls 437,000 Acura cars and other vehicles(2001-03 models) globally, expanding earlier recalls, saying there were two processes used to prepare air bag inflator propellant and one "does not provide us with the same confidence."
2011:
April 27 – Honda recalls 896,000 Honda and Acura 2001-03 cars in order to find defective Takata air bag inflators installed as replacement parts.
Dec 1 - Honda again expands recalls. Globally, it says 304,000 are recalled as a bad inflator may have been installed at the factory, and 613,000 are recalled to find defective inflators installed as replacement parts.
2013:
April 11 - Toyota Motor <7203.T>, Honda, Nissan Motor <7201.T> and Mazda Motor <7261.T> recall 3.4 million vehicles globally due to possibly defective Takata air bags.
April 18 – Takata says to book extraordinary loss of $307 million for year to March 2013 for recall-related costs.
May 7 – BMW
May 10 – Takata posts record $212.5 million annual net loss, and names Swiss national Stefan Stocker as president, the first foreigner in the post.
Sept 3 – Third death linked to Takata air bags. Devin Xu dies in a 2002 Acura TL sedan in a parking lot accident near Los Angeles from "apparent facial trauma due to foreign object inside air bag," according to coroner's report.
2014:
June 11 – Toyota expands prior recall to 2.27 million vehicles globally; adding 650,000 previously not recalled in Japan, and 1.62 million overseas for a second time.
NHTSA opens probe that goes beyond manufacturing glitches Takata and Honda previously identified. NHTSA is examining whether driving in high humidity regions contributes to the risk of Takata air bag explosions. Takata says inflators in the recall were supplied to Honda, Toyota, BMW, Chrysler
June 23 — Honda, Nissan and Mazda recall 2.95 million vehicles, expanding the April 2013 recall, bringing the total recall to about 10.5 million vehicles over five years. Later, Honda, Toyota, Nissan, Mazda, BMW, Chrysler and Ford say they are recalling more vehicles in some U.S. high humidity regions at NHTSA's request to replace Takata air bag inflators.
June 26 – Takata CEO apologizes to shareholders at AGM.
June 30 – Takata says some potentially defective inflators were also shipped to Subaru <9778.T> and Mitsubishi Motors <7211.T>.
July 16 – BMW recalls about 1.6 million cars worldwide to replace Takata air bags, going beyond the regional U.S. recall.
July 18 - Takata says to book special loss of about 45 billion yen ($440 million) in April-June for recalls.
Oct 2 – Fourth death linked to Takata air bags. Orlando woman Hien Thi Tran dies four days after her 2001 Honda Accord is in an accident in which the air bag explodes, shooting out shrapnel, according to the police report.
Oct 17 - Reuters, based on a review of internal Takata documents and emails, reports the Japanese supplier struggled to meet its own standards for safety in manufacturing air bag inflators at its plant in Monclova, Mexico.
Oct 20 – Toyota recalls 247,000 vehicles in the U.S. for Takata air bag problems.
Oct 21 - Takata shares drop 23 percent in Tokyo.
Oct 22 - NHTSA expands the total number of U.S. vehicles recalled involving Takata air bags to 7.8 million over the past 18 months.
Oct 27 – A first case seeking class-action status is filed in Florida, claiming Takata and automakers, including Honda and Toyota, concealed crucial information on potentially defective air bags.
Oct 30 - NHTSA orders Takata to provide documents and answer questions under oath in air bag probe. On Nov 5, NHTSA orders Honda to do the same.
Nov 6 - Takata warns of a bigger full-year loss, and pays no interim dividend for first time since 2006.
Nov 7 - New York Times reports Takata ordered technicians to destroy results of tests on some air bags after finding cracks in inflators.
Democratic lawmakers call for criminal probe into Takata.
Nov 10 - Takata shares drop 17 percent to 5-1/2 year low.
Nov 12 - Takata tells Reuters it has modified the composition of an air bag propellant that contains a volatile chemical at the center of the air bag recalls. Takata did not specify how or when the propellant recipe in the air bag inflators changed, but said ammonium nitrate is still used and the change was part of a process of continual improvement and not a sign of a flaw or defect.
Nov 13 - Honda says an unnamed woman died in Malaysia in July after being hit by shrapnel from a Takata air bag in her Honda City - the fifth such fatality and first outside the U.S.
Honda recalls another 170,000 cars in Asia and Europe, taking its total Takata-related recalls to nearly 10 million.
Takata says its U.S. unit has been subpoenaed by a federal grand jury in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York to produce documents related to air bag defects.
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