Nathan Bomey

USA TODAY

Ford Motor Co. confirmed Tuesday that it would recall nearly 400,000 mid-size pickup trucks to replace defective air bags involved in the Takata scandal.

The automaker said it would replace the air bags in 391,394 units of the 2004 through 2006 model-year Ford Ranger.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported Friday that a South Carolina driver of a 2006 Ranger was killed in December when a Takata air bag exploded during a crash.

Takata air bag recall expands by 5 million

It marked the 10th death regulators have attributed to the Takata defect and the first in a non-Honda vehicle.

NHTSA said Friday that it expected the Takata recall to expand from 19 million vehicles to about 24 million vehicles because of new discoveries, including the Ranger incident. That expansion was expected to include the Ranger vehicles.

Ford said that Ranger owners can check to see if their vehicle is affected by the recall by entering their vehicle identification number (VIN) in the safety recalls page accessible on the bottom of Ford.com.

NHTSA spokesman Gordon Trowbridge told reporters that before the deadly accident, testing of 1,900 inflators in the Ranger had uncovered no problems.

Takata, a Japanese auto supplier, agreed in November to accept penalties of at least $70 million and up to $200 million for failing to promptly disclose and fix defective air bag inflators now blamed for 10 deaths and at least 98 injuries.

Trowbridge said Friday that the number of recalled inflators could expand by "tens of millions" if Takata can't prove that the ammonium-nitrate propellant in the inflators is not responsible for the defect.

Recalls of Takata vehicles have proceeded slowly, in part because replacement inflators haven't been readily available. Also, many vehicle owners have ignored recall notices.

As of late December, some 27% of U.S. vehicle owners with a recalled Takata driver-side air bag had completed the repair. In hot, humid areas where air bags are most likely to rupture, about 34% had gotten their cars repaired.

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