NHTSA confirms 11th US fatality linked to Takata airbag inflators.

ABC World News Tonight (10/20, story 8, 0:20, Muir, 14.63M) reported US Federal highway officials have confirmed another fatality “linked to a Takata air bag inflator in a 2001 Honda Civic that had been recalled in 2008, but was never repaired.” NBC Nightly News (10/20, story 6, 0:25, Holt, 16.61M) reported the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration “says a 50-year-old woman died from injuries in a crash on September 30th,” which NBC notes is the “11th confirmed US fatality tied to ruptures of Takata air bag inflators.” MLive (MI) (10/20, 609K) mentions Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said in June, “With as high as a 50 percent chance of a dangerous air bag inflator rupture in a crash, these vehicles are unsafe and need to be repaired immediately,” and has continually encouraged motorists go “straight to a dealer to have them repaired immediately, free of charge.”

        Additional coverage is provided by the AP (10/20), Automotive News (10/20, Beene, 185K), Reuters (10/20), Bloomberg News (10/20, Lippert, 2.49M), the Huffington Post (10/20, 224K), Riverside (CA) Press Enterprise (10/20, Brooks, 328K), KCAL-TV Los Angeles (10/20, 176K), the Los Angeles (CA) Times (10/20, Press, 4.52M), and KABC-TV Los Angeles (10/20, 668K).