A total of 1900 passengers and drivers in mini van crashes recorded between 2001 and 2006 were killed because the air bag did not deploy. Now, we have testimony from a Chrysler employee that suggests that some of these crashes occurred in cars whose air bags were recalibrated by the company to not deploy at all.

This revelation came in court papers presented in the lawsuit relating to the death of Brooke Katz and her unborn child in a deadly car accident in Atlanta. Katz was killed when her airbag did not deploy at the time of impact. Her husband has filed a lawsuit against Chrysler, the maker of the vehicle she was driving at the time. His lawyers have argued that Chrysler knew that there was a late deployment problem in its airbag system and instead of fixing the problem, the company altered the sensors to not deploy at all in the event of an accident. What this meant is that hundreds of passengers who met with accidents in Chrysler vehicles found to their dismay that the air bag did not deploy at all, leading to injuries and fatalities.

The problem surfaced when incidents of late deployments which can cause injuries and even fatal air bag accidents, were brought to light. To deal with the problem, Chrysler it seems chose the easiest way around it. The air bag system was modified, so that the sensors responsible for a late deployment were destroyed at the moment of impact, leading to the airbag not deploying at all.

In making the recalibration changes to the airbag system, engineers were guided by the company, a Chrysler engineer has testified.

The company has denied all wrong doing where its Dodge Grand Caravan mini vans are concerned, and has said that the recalibration of the air bag sensor system was done to prevent late deployment which can cause injuries to passengers and drivers. That statement begs the obvious question – why was the late deployment problem not dealt with at the source? Why did the solution have to be a non-deployment of airbags which is even more dangerous than a late deployment? How is it possible that the auto maker, one of the country’s oldest and largest, could not deal with a late deployment problem by fixing the system so that it deployed on time?

Most importantly were there shortcut measures taken to deal with the late deployment problem? A shortcut that may have been responsible for hundreds, if not more, of air bag accidents after the recalibration technique was introduced in mid-2004?

Unfortunately, all evidence seems to point to yet another instance of auto manufacturers playing with customer safety and using defective air bags in order to tide over the cost of expensive restructuring of their automotive technology. The auto industry has been riddled with scandal after scandal in recent years, as management has used defective parts in vehicles that have gone out to destroy lives. The Center for Auto Safety says the recalibration decision taken by Chrysler was a “bad engineering decision.” It’s just one of many that the industry seems to be getting into the habit of making.

The Reeves Law Group is a law firm with offices throughout California dedicated exclusively to the representation of personal injury victims, including victims of airbag failures. Please visit our website at trlglaw.com. If you desire a free consultation on a personal injury matter, please call us at (800) 644-8000 or email us.