A statement has been issued by Mr. Shigehisa Takada, Chairman and CEO of Takata Corporation following the massive worldwide recall of car fitted with Takata airbags.

From its founding, Takata Corporation has always been dedicated to public safety. Our primary mission is to make products that save lives and prevent injuries. Takata deeply regrets the injuries and fatalities that have occurred in accidents involving ruptured airbag inflators.

We are proud that Takata airbags have saved thousands of lives and prevented hundreds of thousands of serious injuries by safely deploying in more than two million accidents around the world. But any failure of even one Takata airbag to deploy as designed in an automobile accident is incompatible with our commitment to the highest standards of product quality.

We have expended extraordinary resources to respond to the reports of inflator ruptures. Our engineers have conducted a top-to-bottom review of our manufacturing procedures and exhaustive analyses of potential root causes. We have addressed issues as they have been identified and have made improvements in our products and production methods where warranted. In all these actions, we have consistently supported our valued customers, the automobile manufacturers, and we have worked closely with government regulators in the United States, in Japan, and elsewhere.

Wherever recalls have been announced, we have also committed unprecedented resources to produce the replacement units needed to respond to the recalls on a timely basis. As Takata’s Chairman, however, I know we can and must do more. Therefore, today, I am announcing several important steps the Company will take, beginning immediately, to demonstrate our commitment to public safety. These steps will provide increased assurances to the public, to our customers, and to the responsible government agencies that Takata will not rest until we have resolved all issues relating to the performance of our airbag products.

First, Takata is forming an independent Quality Assurance Panel to audit and prepare an independent report regarding our current manufacturing procedures for best practices in the production of safe inflators, including inflator propellant.

Second, I have appointed two distinguished former Secretaries of the U.S. Department of Transportation, the Honorable Rodney Slater and the Honorable Norman Y. Mineta, to serve as special counsels to the Company. They will advise the Company as we address the current challenges we face.

Third, we will take dramatic actions to increase our capacity to produce replacement kits to meet the demands of the evolving recalls. We are committed to working with regulators and with other producers in the industry in a collaborative way so that together we can do everything reasonably possible to meet demand for replacement kits around the world.

Fourth, we are redoubling our efforts to learn all we can from past events.

I am directing that additional resources and equipment be added immediately to increase the number of tests we are able to perform each day, and we are bringing in additional engineers and statisticians who are recognized in the fields of propellants, combustion, and data analysis, to work directly with our engineers in Michigan to help us carry out this critical work.