Lhe story begins in the overseas departments with a series of accidents. including that of Raïssa, now disfigured. As reported by BFMTV, on October 24, 2021, at an intersection, near Pointe à Pitre, the young woman was hit at an intersection by a car which ran a Stop sign. His daughter Naelia, eight years old at the time, is in the back seat. “My car was thrown. I heard a loud bang. I felt my face burning like hell and I screamed, “Ouch!” My mouth, my mouth! I am hot. I’m in pain,” she says in the “Sept à Huit” investigation broadcast on TF1. His daughter continues: “I saw his face, it was torn. It looks like it was a gunshot to the face,” she said.
Raïssa underwent emergency surgery. Part of his face was shattered. During the operation, doctors found a piece of metal lodged between his eye and ear. It was not a bullet, but a piece of the airbag mechanism that exploded when it deployed. A second projectile pierced the windshield, a third, Raïssa’s bag placed on the passenger side. For more than a year, Raïssa was only able to eat liquid foods. She underwent five facial reconstruction operations with prostheses, bone and skin grafts
“Thank God I’m still here. Miraculous »
“An airbag that is supposed to protect you, but which kills you. Thank God I’m still here. Miraculous,” she blurted. Before showing his face in front of the camera of “Sept à Huit”, for a few seconds, as a cry of alarm in the name of all the victims.
Beyond Raïssa, at least seven injuries and five deaths have been identified in the overseas departments: Réunion, Guadeloupe and Guyana, between 2018 and 2023. According to the first investigations, the defective airbag model is deteriorating following to prolonged exposure of the car to heat and humidity. Normally, the airbag is supposed to inflate in the event of an impact. It is the gas generator which allows the cushion to inflate. But on the model in question, hot air and humidity infiltrate, altering this gas over time. When triggered, the gas burns faster than expected. Too much pressure then causes the steel casing to explode into a potentially lethal projectile.
Read also
Defective airbag case: 8 million vehicles affected in Europe
BFMTV reports that after a death occurring overseas in 2019, Stellantis management indicates that it has sent a reminder letter from 2020 to 19,000 Citroën and DS owners in five overseas departments, stipulating that metal debris could occur. detach and injure passengers. Tragic irony for Raïssa, she only learned of the letter ten months after her accident. A first letter with acknowledgment of receipt was sent to her in January 2021, but she did not withdraw it in time. A second one had been sent to an old address.
In Paris, his lawyer, Charles-Henri Coppet, who also represents six other seriously injured people and four bereaved families, denounces a recall campaign that is insufficient in relation to the seriousness of the problem. For him, lives could have been saved, families could not have been torn apart. “This human drama could have been contained,” he laments
A month and a half after the start of the recall campaign, the Stellantis group claims to have replaced the airbags of 35,000 cars, or less than 15% of the recalled automobiles. As a result, thousands of angry drivers, whose cars were immobilized, gathered on Facebook groups for collective action to demand compensation.
Read also
“Killer” airbags under the effect of heat and humidity
Claim compensation
In the Hautes-Pyrénées, a 51-year-old man died for the same reasons. A few months later, Stellantis launched, this time, an unprecedented national recall campaign. On May 3, 2024, 246,000 cars were recalled with orders to stop driving immediately. This concerns the Citröen C3 and DS 3, manufactured between 2009 and 2019.
A month and a half after the start of the recall campaign, the Stellantis group claims to have replaced the airbags of 35,000 cars, or less than 15% of the recalled automobiles. Replacements that take time and block customers. The group says it has mobilized 25,000 additional courtesy vehicles. But it’s not enough for everyone.
Thousands of angry drivers have banded together on Facebook for collective action to demand compensation. For its part, Stellantis estimates that almost all replacements will be carried out by October 2024.
Read also
Defective airbags: three new car models affected by recalls
