The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) may stick with its initial decision to recall 52 million ARC Automotive air bags.

NHTSA will retake comments for 30 days then decide whether to pursue the recall. Previous comments were taken through Dec. 18, 2023.

The inflators use phase-stabilized ammonium nitrate (PSAN) as a propellant that has been known to result in violent explosions and send metal shrapnel into the faces of vehicle occupants.

NHTSA says at least one person was killed by one of the defective inflators, and seven others have been injured in the U.S. and Canada. The Associated Press reported in 2022 that there had been two deaths.

Marlene Beaudoin, a mother of eight, was killed in 2021 by an ARC inflator explosion.

NHTSA demanded the ARC inflator recall in April of last year following a nearly eight-year investigation. The request included 41 million frontal hybrid, toroidal driver, and passenger inflators manufactured by ARC from 2000 through the implementation of the borescope examination process in January 2018. It also included 11 million driver hybrid, toroidal inflators manufactured by Delphi under its licensing agreement with ARC.

The recall includes vehicles made by 13 OEMs:

• • BMW of North America
  • Fiat Chrysler Automobiles U.S.
  • Ford
  • General Motors
  • Hyundai Motor America
  • Jaguar Land Rover North America
  • Kia America
  • Maserati North America
  • Mercedes-Benz USA
  • Porsche Cars North America
  • Tesla
  • Toyota Motor North America
  • Volkswagen Group of America

ARC refused to issue the recall. OEMs and suppliers also disputed NHTSA’s recall including GM, FCA, Volkswagen, Toyota, Hyundai, Kia, Porsche, Ford, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Autoliv.

“To be sure, the overwhelming majority of the subject inflators will not rupture upon deployment,” NHTSA wrote in its July 31 supplement to its initial decision. “However, based on the evidence linking past ruptures to the same friction welding process, all of the subject inflators are at risk of rupturing. The unpredictable nature of this defect has played out with some inflators passing lot acceptance testing but later rupturing in a vehicle and causing injury or death. The only way to know which of the subject inflators remaining in vehicles will rupture is for them to deploy. The Safety Act does not allow such a defect to go unaddressed.

“In recognition of the commonsense understanding that an inflator that may rupture is defective, some vehicle manufacturers have already issued limited recalls following field ruptures. This approach is insufficient to address the defect. The evidence shows that the risk of rupture pervades the entire subject inflator population and, as such, a recall for all subject inflators is needed.”

GM has recalled the most air bags at 1 million vehicles.

NHTSA noted that it found the air bags can deploy in minor crashes “meaning this defect can turn an incident from which the occupants could have walked away unscathed into one that will likely cause serious injury or death.”

“There is no way for a vehicle owner, or anyone else, to know that a particular subject inflator will rupture until it is too late. The safety of vehicle occupants is significantly compromised by the rupture of the subject inflators — a considerable factor in the agency’s determination that the subject inflators are defective under the Safety Act. ”

If the agency determines the inflators are defective, it will issue a recall order to ARC and automakers but that could mean a lawsuit to force action.

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