The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration issued a warning in January 2026, highlighting that substandard, dangerous airbag inflators manufactured in China have caused at least 9 deaths since 2023 and multiple injuries in the United States. Six of those fatalities occurred in 2025 alone. The notice indicates these parts may have been illegally imported into the United States. This warning should serve as a sobering reminder for every industry leader: visibility is not just about knowing where something is. It is about knowing where it has been and who handled it along the way.
The challenge facing federal regulators reveals a fundamental gap in how we track mission-critical components. The real danger is not just that substandard parts entered the supply chain. It is that most companies lack the digital infrastructure to quickly trace their origin, validate their authenticity, and identify every affected product. The NHTSA warning exposes a critical vulnerability: because these are aftermarket parts not tied to vehicle identification numbers, they are effectively impossible to trace without a physical inspection. Regulators can issue warnings, but without comprehensive tracking systems, they cannot identify which vehicles contain these dangerous components.
This is not a problem unique to automotive, and the consequences in other sectors can be equally catastrophic.
In aerospace, defense, and other mission-critical sectors, the integrity of every component can mean the difference between mission success and catastrophic failure. Yet too many organizations still treat asset tracking as a logistics problem to simply answer "where is it now?"
The real questions we should be asking are:
- Where did this part originate, and can we verify its manufacturer?
- Were proper handling and storage protocols maintained throughout transit?
- Who handled it at each stage of the supply chain?
- Can we prove an unbroken chain of custody from factory to installation?
IoT technology combined with immutable digital records gives us the power to answer these questions in real time. It is about creating a complete digital thread of each component's journey: not just its current GPS coordinates, but its entire provenance, handling history, and custody chain from factory floor to final installation.
When lives and national security depend on component integrity, "I think we know where that came from" is not good enough.
We need certainty.
The individuals and families affected by substandard parts deserve better. Every organization responsible for mission-critical operations owes their stakeholders the same commitment: absolute transparency and accountability throughout the supply chain.
The technology exists today to create this level of visibility. The question is no longer whether we can track complete chain of custody. The question is why we are not already doing it.
It is time we stop treating supply chain visibility as a tracking problem and start treating it as the security and safety imperative it truly is.
Additional information:
- NHTS PR: https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/urgent-warning-two-more-deaths-substandard-dangerous-chinese-air-bag-inflators
- Wall Street Journal Article: https://www.wsj.com/business/autos/no-one-knows-how-many-deadly-air-bags-are-on-u-s-roads-46ec160c?st=du63sj
