Takata Corp, the Japanese auto parts maker at the centre of a global vehicle recall, ordered its technicians to destroy results of tests on some of its air bags after finding cracks in air bag inflators, the New York Times said on Friday.
The tests were carried out on the inflators - steel canisters that contain an explosive used to inflate the bags in a collision - after an accident in 2004 when an inflator in a Honda Accord exploded, ejecting metal fragments and injuring the driver, it said.
Citing two former Takata employees, the newspaper said Takata retrieved 50 airbags from scrap yards for tests not long after the accident. Instead of alerting U.S. federal safety regulators to the possible danger, Takata executives ordered the technicians to destroy the test data, the paper said.
Takata had no immediate comment on the report, which sent the company's shares down as much as 4.7 percent.
Takata has been beset by chronic problems with defective inflators in its air bags, which can explode with excessive force and spray metal shards. The air bags, used by many leading car makers, are the focus of a U.S. regulatory probe and have prompted the recall of some 17 million cars worldwide in the past six years, and more could follow.
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