Police investigate Mitsubishi for truck accident<\/p>\n
Police questioned the former chairman of Mitsubishi Fuso Truck
\n& Bus Corp. on suspicion the Japanese truckmaker tried to shirk
\nresponsibility for a fatal accident in which a wheel flew off one
\nof its trucks, national media reported on Sunday.<\/p>\n
The reports said police were building a criminal case against
\nTakashi Usami and other unnamed executives at Mitsubishi Fuso, an
\naffiliate of Japanese automaker Mitsubishi Motors Corp. and its
\nGerman-American partner DaimlerChrysler AG, for allegedly filing
\na false report on the January 2002 accident.<\/p>\n
A 29-year-old woman was killed and her two children injured on
\na sidewalk in the Tokyo suburb of Yokohama when they were struck
\nby a wheel that came off a passing Mitsubishi truck. A hub
\nlinking the wheel to the axle was found to be broken.<\/p>\n
The truckmaker blamed poor maintenance and overloading by the
\noperator in a report it filed with industry regulators before
\nconducting stress tests and other efforts in an internal probe,
\nKyodo News quoted police as saying.<\/p>\n
Police have started questioning Usami, 63, on suspicion the
\ntruckmaker falsified the report to head off a recall, the media
\nreports said.<\/p>\n
Authorities are investigating dozens of wheel-separation
\naccidents involving Mitsubishi trucks dating back more than a
\ndecade.<\/p>\n
More than two years after the fatal accident, Mitsubishi Fuso
\nannounced in March plans to recall 220,000 trucks after
\nacknowledging that a design flaw could cause the wheel hubs to
\ncrack.<\/p>\n
Usami resigned earlier this month in a show of contrition over
\nthe delayed recall.<\/p>\n
A spokesman for police in Kanagawa prefecture (state),
\nHiroyoshi Ichikawa, declined to comment on the media reports
\nSunday. Phones rang unanswered at Mitsubishi Fuso.<\/p>\n
DaimlerChrysler owns 43 percent of the truckmaker, and
\nMitsubishi Motors 42 percent.<\/p>\n
The relationship between those two partners was thrown into
\ndoubt last week when DaimlerChrysler announced it would not pump
\nany more money in Mitsubishi Motors, which had reportedly planned
\nto raise several billion dollars worth of capital from
\nshareholders to restructure its struggling business.
\nDaimlerChrysler holds a 37 percent stake in Mitsubishi Motors. --
\nAP<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/police-investigate-mitsubishi-for-truck-accident-1447893297",
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