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Takata Drops Chemical Linked To Air Bag Deaths

Takata Drops Chemical Linked To Air Bag Deaths

A Japanese manufacturer has said it will replace a volatile chemical used in its air bag inflators, which have been linked to the deaths of six people.

Takata Corp is at the centre of a global recall of tens of millions of cars over fears their air bags could inflate with too much force and spray shrapnel inside the vehicles.

Company executive Kevin Kennedy confirmed to US safety regulators it planned to stop using ammonium nitrate as a propellant in the bags in written testimony ahead of a hearing before a US House panel on Tuesday.

"We are working with our automaker partners to transition to newer versions of driver inflators in our replacement kits, or inflators made by other suppliers that do not contain ammonium nitrate propellant," he said.

The chemical has been linked to dozens of ruptured inflators over the past 12 years, allegedly leading to the fatalities as well as injuring hundreds.

The deaths were all in Honda vehicles and mostly in the US.

However, despite the ammonium nitrate ban, David Kelly, head of an automakers' coalition investigating the incidents, said the discovery of a root cause of the problem is still "not imminent".

He said last month that if a root cause cannot be found, "we may have this same discussion again" years from now.

On 20 May, Takata doubled the amount of recalled vehicles in America to 34 million - the biggest in US history - and widened the worldwide recall to 53 million vehicles.

Makes affected include Ford, Chevrolet, Subaru, Honda, Fiat Chrysler, BMW, Mitsubishi, Daimler Trucks, Mazda, Nissan, and Toyota.

At the weekend, General Motors added about 375,000 GMC Sierra and Chevrolet Silverado pickup trucks to the recall in North America.

It said the affected trucks were built in 2007 and 2008, and it knew of no crashes or injuries caused by their air bags.

Subaru is adding about 60,000 Impreza cars made in 2004 and 2005, plus the 2005 Saab 9-2X made by Subaru.

The US government's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has a list of models affected .