NHTSA Investigation DP15004

Rollover Side Curtain Air Bags

In June 2015, the Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) opened this Defect Petition in response to a petition (see ODI 10568388) requesting a defect investigation of several alleged defects that can cause occupant ejections during rollover crashes in certain General Motors vehicles.The petition focused on a 2011 Texas crash involving a model year 2010 Chevrolet Tahoe, which allegedly resulted in multiple occupants to be ejected.One of the ejected occupants was fatally injured.In assessing the petitioner's request, ODI reviewed information from the petitioner, technical information related to rollover side curtain air bags from General Motors (note: ODI did not request GM's field incident data), NHTSA's prior testing and evaluation work related to FMVSS No. 226 Ejection Mitigation, and potentially relevant reports in the NHTSA complaint and crash databases.Based on the information available at the present time, NHTSA does not believe that a safety-related defect currently exists in the design of the rollover side curtain air bags in the model year 2010 Chevrolet Tahoe and other similarly designed Tahoe and Yukon vehicles.Therefore, the petition is denied.However, the agency will take further action if warranted by changing future circumstances.The official petition denial, as published in the Federal Register, is available in the document file for this petition.

An investigation is a separate record from a recall and from a manufacturer communication. A manufacturer campaign to repair a safety defect or a failure to meet a federal safety standard.