A faulty airbag manufactured by Japanese company Takata was the cause of the death of 26-year-old Turkish national Ali Osman Bayram, who died in a car crash in the north, Cyprus Turkish chamber of mechanical engineers chairman Ayer Yarkiner said on Friday.
“Vehicles with risky airbags affected by the Takata crisis are being allowed to be imported without inspection,” he said, adding that “despite years of warnings, the necessary precautions have not been taken”.
“The government is indifferent, the prime minister is not taking responsibility, and the transport ministry is passive,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Turkish Cypriot police said a faulty airbag “could have been a factor” in Bayram’s death and that they had written to the Cyprus Turkish chamber of mechanical engineers for this reason.
Bayram’s exact cause of death, they said, will be determined by an autopsy.
Bayram, a Turkish army artillery lieutenant, was killed on Monday night while driving on the road between Kyrenia and Kythrea, which is colloquially known as the “mountain road”.
According to the Turkish Cypriot police, he was driving towards Kyrenia when his car collided head-on with a car being driven by 31-year-old Canberk Caydam.
He died at the scene, while his passenger, 26-year-old Oguzhan Kocyigit, was hospitalised.
His body was repatriated to the Turkish city of Afyonkarahisar, where he was given a military funeral on Friday.
Earlier in the year, Yarkiner had told the north’s transport services commission that the north has “no time to waste” over faulty Takata airbags, calling for a law to be passed to “place responsibility onto the vehicle users” and ensure that vehicles fitted with faulty airbags are “banned from traffic”.
Additionally, he told the north’s ‘transport minister’ Erhan Arikli that Takata airbags “explode like hand grenades” and warned that there are people who will be impacted by the airbags “other than those who we have already detected”.
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