Counterfeit Air Bags Have Now Killed 11 Americans. Here’s How to Check Your Car.

Eleven people across the United States have died in car crashes they should have survived, killed not by the impact itself but by the air bag that was supposed to protect them. In each case, the steering wheel air bag had been replaced with a cheap inflator, likely imported illegally from China, that exploded and sent metal fragments into the driver’s body.

On September 3, 2026, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced the 11th death: a driver killed on August 27 in Dallas when the air bag in a 2018 Chevrolet Equinox ruptured. It’s the first death involving an Equinox. Every earlier death happened in a Chevrolet Malibu or a Hyundai Sonata, and the spread to a new model is exactly what regulators had warned about.

A Part That’s Supposed to Save You

An air bag inflator is a small metal canister inside the air bag module. In a crash, a chemical charge inside it ignites and produces a burst of gas that fills the air bag in a fraction of a second. A properly made inflator contains that reaction.

The defective inflators don’t. According to NHTSA, instead of inflating the bag, they burst apart, turning the metal canister into shrapnel aimed directly at the driver’s chest, neck, and face. Federal investigators found autopsy and police reports confirming that the ruptured inflators directly caused the deaths.

If that sounds familiar, it’s because it’s the same basic failure behind the Takata air bag recall, the largest auto recall in U.S. history. The difference is that Takata’s defective inflators came from the factory and were recalled by automakers. These came in later, through the back door of the repair market.

How the Inflators Got Into Cars

All of the deadly inflators are marked with the code “DTN60DB” on the cap. According to NHTSA, they were likely manufactured in 2021 and 2022, and the full code etched on each one includes its date of manufacture.

The cars didn’t come from the factory with these parts. In at least 10 of the original 12 incidents NHTSA investigated, the inflator was installed as a replacement after the car had been in an earlier crash where the original air bag deployed. When a car’s air bag goes off, the module has to be replaced. A genuine replacement from the automaker can be expensive, and cheap knockoff modules are available online for a fraction of the price. Somewhere between the overseas factory and these cars, someone chose the cheap part.

Nobody knows how many are out there. Because the inflators were imported illegally, NHTSA says it has been unable to estimate how many are installed in vehicles on American roads.

Who Made Them? Nobody Will Say

The “DTN” marking appears to refer to Jilin Province Detiannuo Safety Technology Co., a Chinese manufacturer. But when NHTSA moved to ban the inflators, the company told regulators the parts were probably counterfeits of its products made by someone else, and that it had never sold inflators into the U.S. market, except, oddly, to the personal injury law firm Morgan & Morgan.

NHTSA wasn’t persuaded. The agency noted that the company offered no evidence for its counterfeit theory, and that it stopped responding to the agency’s follow-up requests for information. More importantly, NHTSA said it doesn’t matter who made them. Every one of these inflators known to have been in a crash has ruptured and killed or severely injured the driver.

The First Federal Ban in More Than 20 Years

On April 29, 2026, NHTSA issued a final decision declaring the inflators defective, its first ban of vehicle equipment in more than two decades. The order makes it illegal for anyone to sell, offer for sale, or import any inflator marked DTN60DB, or any air bag module containing one. It also bans inflators with a barcode label on the connector side reading “144415654 666631” or “144415654 666633.” That barcode label stays visible even when the inflator is installed in an air bag module, which can help a mechanic identify one.

The order also requires any manufacturer or importer of the inflators to recall them. In practice, that’s a hard order to enforce against unknown importers, which is why the burden falls on owners to check their own cars.

The Victims

The pattern in NHTSA’s records is grim and consistent. Drivers were killed in crashes in Dallas, Sarasota, Oklahoma City, Phoenix, West Valley City, Hayward, Wichita, Toledo, Austin, and Clarksdale, Mississippi, before the most recent death in Dallas. Two of those deaths happened on the same day, December 16, 2025, in Toledo and Austin. Other drivers survived with severe injuries, including in Philadelphia and Fort Worth.

The cars involved were mostly recent models, 2017 to 2022. Every one of the victims was the driver, because the defective inflators were installed in the steering wheel air bag. And NHTSA describes these as otherwise survivable crashes, meaning the driver would likely have walked away if the air bag had worked.

How to Check Your Car

You’re most at risk if you bought your car used, or if your car was in a crash where the air bags went off and it wasn’t repaired at a dealership.

Start with the car’s history. If you don’t know it, get a vehicle history report, which will often show prior accidents and whether air bags deployed. NHTSA says any car that was in a crash with an air bag deployment since 2020 and wasn’t repaired by the manufacturer’s dealership should be inspected.

Have the inspection done by a reputable mechanic or a dealer, and don’t try to do it yourself. Air bags contain explosive charges and can cause serious injury if they’re handled incorrectly. A mechanic can check whether the inflator is a genuine part.

If your car has one of these inflators, NHTSA says not to drive it until the inflator has been replaced with a genuine part. Report it to NHTSA’s Vehicle Safety Hotline at 888-327-4236 or online at NHTSA.gov. Federal authorities also want to hear about it, because these parts were illegally imported. You can report it to your local Homeland Security Investigations office, an FBI field office, or the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center.

If you’re shopping for a used car, ask directly whether it has ever had an air bag deployment, and get the answer in writing. A car with a deployed and replaced air bag isn’t necessarily a problem, but you want to know who did the repair and with what parts.

Who’s Responsible When a Fake Air Bag Kills

When a counterfeit air bag injures or kills someone, the overseas maker is often impossible to reach. But the people closer to home who put the part in the car, or sold the car with it, can be held responsible.

That can include the body shop or mechanic who installed a non-genuine air bag, the seller who supplied the part, and in some cases a used car dealer who sold a car with a repaired air bag without disclosing it or checking the work. Depending on the facts, claims can include negligence, product liability, and violations of state consumer protection laws, such as the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act and Massachusetts Chapter 93A.

If someone is hurt in a crash where an air bag ruptured or failed, preserving the evidence is critical. The air bag module, the inflator, and any fragments need to be saved, and the car shouldn’t be scrapped or sent to auction until it’s been inspected. Records of the car’s earlier repairs matter too. Once that evidence is gone, proving what happened becomes much harder.

Jake Dressler is a Connecticut and Massachusetts attorney who represents people injured in car crashes and by defective vehicle parts. For a free consultation, call (860) 913-0210 or email [email protected].

This post is general information, not legal advice. Every situation is different, so talk to a lawyer about your specific facts.