Ford Recalls 2005-2006 F-150 To Fix Airbag Problem

Ford says it will recall about 144,000 F-150 pickup trucks in the United States and Canada from the 2005 and 2006 model years over a risk that airbags could deploy because of a short circuit.

Ford said it had received a number of complaints about the problem, although it did not specify how many. It said that most of the inadvertent deployments came just a few seconds after the trucks were started.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) had not yet posted the recall at the time of Ford's announcement and it was not clear if there had been any injuries attributed to the problem. The company said it would notify customers of the recall in March.

"Ford is aware of one customer that jumped from the vehicle after a deployment that occurred in a driveway," the company said in a statement.

The F-150 is the top-selling vehicle in the United States despite a long history of safety-related problems, most notably the vehicle's unfortunate tendency to burst into flames when parked and unattended.

After ignoring the problem for years, the company finally recalled millions of vehicles in 2005 and later years,

Ford said that most of the vehicles with the flawed wire appeared to have been built at its Norfolk, Va., plant from November 2004 to June 2005.