Hondo Motor has attributed the death of a woman reported in September last year in Los Angeles to the violent deployment of Takata-made airbag, raising the toll to eight.
The safety regulators in the US told Reuters that the death of one Jewel Brangman, who was travelling in a 2001 Honda Civic, was the eighth fatal case borne of defective airbag inflators made by Takata, which exploded and spewed shrapnel around.
Around 34 million callbacks have been ordered due to the airbag snags, reaching a milestone in the recall history owing to a manufacturing defect.
Honda said the car, which dated back to 2001 but issued with a salvage title in October 2011, was bought by a rental car agency in California. It was ultimately rented to Brangman whose life was abridged by the defective airbags.
Meanwhile, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has come up with vehicle identification numbers hit by the Takata airbag. Callbacks are fed to a search system maintained by the agency, involving 11 automakers and roughly 34 million vehicles.
US Transportation secretary Anthony Foxx said: "An informed consumer is one of our strongest allies in ensuring recalled vehicles are repaired.
"NHTSA's VIN search tool at safercar.gov makes it easy for consumers to check if their vehicle is affected by the recall, and to take action in getting the air bags replaced."
