Honda Motor Co. is recalling 304,000 vehicles worldwide for defective airbags that may inflate with too much pressure in a crash, send metal and plastic pieces flying and cause injuries or deaths, the Associated Press reported today from Tokyo.

Airbags are supposed to be designed and manufactured to prevent injuries and save lives-not cause injuries and deaths. When airbags cause serious injuries or deaths either in a crash or by going off without a crash, that is a strong indication they are defective. Butler, Wooten & Fryhofer has substantial experience successfully suing Honda and other auto manufacturers and recovering settlements for victims of defective airbags. In fact, Butler, Wooten & Fryhofer is one of the few law firms in the country which has successfully sued Honda over this very defect in Honda's airbags - and won a quick settlement for the victim.

Our case involved Kristy Williams, a young Georgia woman who was driving a 2001 Honda Civic. On April 2, 2010, while stopped at a red light, both driver and passenger frontal Honda airbags in the Honda Civic deployed without any impact or other known triggering event.

When the driver's side frontal Honda airbag deployed, pieces of metal were propelled through the fabric of the airbag cushion as the airbag inflator exploded and ruptured. These pieces of shrapnel struck Kristy Williams in the neck and severed her carotid artery, causing a large loss of blood.

Ms. Williams was in the ICU for two weeks. She underwent multiple surgeries, suffered a seizure and several strokes and other injuries from this defective Honda airbag.

"The Honda air bag that was supposed to protect Ms. Williams caused her injuries. It is important for the public to know about the seriousness of this defect and its potential for causing catastrophic injuries and deaths," said Leigh Martin May, Butler, Wooten & Fryhofer attorney and counsel in the Williams case.

In only nine months after the case was filed, Honda and the car company's co-defendants settled the case in favor of Ms. Williams for a sum that was confidential at the automaker's request.

Honda told the Associated Press that there have been 20 accidents so far related to this problem, including two deaths in the U.S. in 2009.

The recall, announced Dec. 2, 2011, affects the Accord, Civic, Odyssey, Pilot, CR-V and other models, manufactured in 2001 and 2002.

The recall spans 273,000 vehicles in the U.S., some 27,000 in Canada, nearly 2,000 vehicles in Japan and another 2,000 in other countries. It affected 359 vehicles in Europe - 200 in Germany, 158 in Israel and one in Great Britain, according to Honda.

The latest recall is an expansion of recalls for the same problem in 2008, and again carried out in 2009, as well as last year. The recall now covers about 2 million vehicles worldwide, according to Tokyo-based Honda.

Butler, Wooten & Fryhofer has successfully litigated a significant number of cases involving defective airbags manufactured by Honda and other manufacturers. Because of that experience, we would be glad to meet with or talk to you if you or a loved one have suffered airbag injuries or death. There is no charge or obligation for this initial conference with our attorneys experienced in evaluating defective airbags.

You can read more about Butler, Wooten & Fryhofer's unparalleled experience in auto defects and product liability here.

Honda spokesman Hajime Kaneko said the cause for the latest recall was the use of incorrect material in the chemical used to deploy air bags.

The initial cause of the recall was excessive moisture in the inflator propellant, which is part of what inflates the air bag.

But that problem was found later to affect more vehicles than initially estimated, as incidents didn't stop, and the recall was expanded to account for the possibility that the problem was caused by a defective stamping machine used during production, he said.

Through Mr. Kaneko, Honda claims to be extremely sorry about the recalls and also claims that the problem has now been taken care of, with no more recalls linked to this problem expected. Time will tell if that representation turns out to be true. With this Honda airbag defect, Honda has had a history of making only piecemeal recalls and claiming that the problem was far more limited than it turned out to be.

Also included in the latest recall are 912 air-bag service parts sold for installation in vehicles for collision repair and other reasons, Honda said.

Watch: Kristy Williams talk about the defective air bag that caused her injuries in a Fox 5 news story:

Woman Nearly Killed When Airbag Deploys: MyFoxATLANTA.com

Watch Butler, Wooten and Fryhofer attorney Leigh Martin May interviewed on Fox about the latest Honda airbag recall. You'll also meet our former client, Kristy Williams, who was severely injured by the same airbag defect. We successfully sued Honda on her behalf.

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Source:  AJC, "Honda announces global recall for air-bag problems", 12/2/11