Workers at Mitsubishi Motors Corp. and Mitsubishi Fuso Truck & Bus Corp. observed a minute of silence Tuesday to mark the second anniversary of a fatal accident in Yamaguchi Prefecture caused by a defective Mitsubishi truck.
The companies' defective trucks led to the deaths of two people in Yokohama and Yamaguchi Prefecture. They mark the anniversaries of the deaths by remembering the victims and pledging safety, company officials said.
"We now renew our vow for safety and never to forget the heart-wrenching accidents in which precious lives were lost," MMC President Hideyasu Tagaya said in the message broadcast throughout the company before 9 a.m. Workers then offered prayers.
Mitsubishi Fuso was spun off from MMC in January 2003. The companies have been involved in a series of vehicle defect coverup scandals, including defective clutch housings and wheel hubs. On Oct. 19, 2002, a 39-year-old driver was killed after his Mitsubishi truck crashed into a building in Yamaguchi Prefecture because the brakes had failed. A defective clutch system was found to be the cause.
In January 2002, a 29-year-old woman was killed and her two sons injured when they were hit by a wheel that came off a large Mitsubishi truck with a faulty wheel hub in Yokohama. A total of eight former MMC officials have been arrested and indicted in connection with the two fatal accidents.
