Rehired exec at center of Takata storm

November 15, 2014 12:00 AM

BLOOMBERG

A cover conceals the passenger airbag in a Toyota vehicle. Takata's quality chief returned to the supplier after safety officials reopened their look into malfunctioning airbags in Honda, Nissan, Mazda, Chrysler and Toyota vehicles.

DETROIT -- This past summer, Takata Corp. rehired a retired engineering executive to oversee its embattled quality-control operation -- an executive who is now at the center of a fresh controversy involving the company's disclosures about its defective airbags.

Al Bernat, Takata's former vice president of engineering who retired in 2012, returned as a full-time employee in July and is now senior vice president of quality assurance.

"We brought him out of retirement," company spokesman Alby Berman said this week, "although he was doing some consulting with us even in retirement."

Bernat's return came shortly after the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced June 11 that it would reopen its investigation into malfunctioning airbags in vehicles produced by Honda, Nissan, Mazda, Chrysler and Toyota. The investigation focused on reports that airbags supplied by Takata could spray sharp metal and plastic fragments toward vehicle occupants in a crash and prompted another round in a series of recalls.

During airbag recalls in 2009 and 2010, Bernat "came to be a point man for Takata whenever there was a NHTSA investigative inquiry," said Clarence Ditlow, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety.

However, Bernat's role at the company has been under scrutiny since a Nov. 6 New York Times report that in 2004, he oversaw secret tests at Takata of 50 airbag inflators after Honda allegedly notified the supplier that an airbag had spewed metal debris during an accident in Alabama.

The newspaper, citing two unidentified former Takata employees, claimed that Takata executives hid the test results, an allegation that the company sharply denied on Wednesday.

"Takata did not suppress any test results showing cracking or rupturing in the inflators," Takata said in a written statement.

Bernat was not available for comment.

The Times' allegations of a cover-up are likely to put Bernat's work in the spotlight when Takata officials face a hearing before the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee next week.

The hearing on Thursday will be lawmakers' first opportunity to publicly question them about defective airbag inflators that have prompted the recall of more than 11 million vehicles in the U.S. since 2008.

REUTERS

A billboard for Takata high over the Tokyo skyline in September.

Bernat is well-known within engineering circles. Two former Takata colleagues described him as technically competent and easy to work with.

"Al was very even-keeled, competent and diplomatic at handling the Japanese. He had to be, in that role," said Scott Upham, an industry consultant in Rochester, N.Y., who worked for Takata in the 1990s.

A second former colleague -- a retired executive who asked not to be identified -- described Bernat as a good problem solver. "He was very analytical, very professional," said the executive. "He was well-liked within the technical community."

Bernat, a former General Motors executive, joined Takata in 1991 and was later put in charge of a seat belt operation that Takata acquired in 1989, according to the ex-colleagues. Later, he moved to Takata's engineering operations, which oversaw development of airbags and seat belts.

During the 1990s, Bernat emerged as an unofficial airbag-industry spokesman when he was named chairman of the inflatable-restraints committee of the Automotive Occupant Restraints Council. He was an enthusiastic booster of "smart" airbags that could adjust their deployment according to the size of the passenger.

Ditlow agrees that Bernat has experience and technical expertise. But he notes that allegations about his role in the airbag tests -- if true -- could cause trouble for Takata.

"If you have a company in crisis, you would want a respected senior executive to come back," Ditlow said. "But there's a lot of baggage associated with him."