Regulators were aware a faulty airbag inflator misdeployed and landed on a Melbourne building almost a year before a Sydney man was killed by his unreplaced airbag, an inquest has heard.
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The five-centimetre fragment of the Takata alpha airbag from a BMW was found in September 2016 on a roof nearby where removed airbags were being decommissioned, the NSW Coroners Court was told on Monday.
The inquest is investigating Australia's first Takata airbag death in Cabramatta in July 2017.
Huy Neng Ngo, 58, died minutes after his Honda CRV was involved in a minor collision and part of an airbag inflator fired into his neck, slicing a key artery and his trachea and shattering his spine.
The inquest has previously heard Mr Ngo and his wife weren't native English speakers and their family was deeply concerned they weren't fully aware of the dangers before his death.
Sharon Nyakuengama, the then-assistant manager of the federal government's vehicle safety standards branch, was asked what steps the department took to notify the public of the BMW incident in 2016.
"None that I'm aware of," she told the inquest on Monday.
She said the Department of Industry and Regional Development considered its role to be ensuring the airbag recall - operational since 2009 - was running appropriately.
Any public comment would have come from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission or the manufacturers themselves, she said.
"It wasn't within our expertise or capability - or the department's media area - to push out campaigns," Ms Nyakuengama said.
But the 2016 incident prompted action behind closed doors within weeks.
Ms Nyakuengama emailed a group of officials and manufactures about the "significant development for us all" and discussed how the ACCC could reduce impediments to the recall.
Meanwhile, her boss Jeremy Thomas revised a "back-pocket" media strategy and sent it to the department's media advisors in case the recall became a public issue, the inquest heard.
"Our media posture was to respond to questions, not to set the media agenda," Ms Nyakuengama said.
NT police issued a warning in April 2017 when a woman was struck in the head during a minor crash.
When Mr Ngo became the 18th global death associated with Takata airbags, a larger public response occurred, including warnings from the ACCC and Urban Infrastructure Minister Paul Fletcher.
The number of airbags replaced in Australia more than doubled within months and the recall was made compulsory in February 2018.
Ms Nyakuengama agreed "in hindsight" that publicising the BMW incident could have resulted in more drivers taking action to book airbag replacements.
A lawyer for Honda told the court manufacturers urged Canberra and the ACCC in September 2015 to launch a public campaign.
"They don't do anything until after the death. There are troubling features of this that need to be answered. What the hell was going on before that time?"
Still, 300,000 of the potentially deadly airbags remain in Australian vehicles including 8500 of the inflators like that in Mr Ngo's Honda CRV.
Some 78,000 older-model cars are also subject to a different airbag recall announced in December 2019.
That airbag inflator is also associated with an Australian death.
"(If your car is subject to a recall) you are running a grave risk of the driver of the vehicle or a passenger dying or suffering serious injuries akin to a gunshot wound to the neck or head," coroner Elaine Truscott said on Monday.
Drivers can check if their car is affected at ismyairbagsafe.com.au or by texting TAKATA to 0487 AIRBAG.
Australian Associated Press
