Serious allegations of negligence, inadequate information, and inaction by the competent authorities and car manufacturers were made on Wednesday by the parents of two young people who lost their lives due to defective Takata airbags, before the Investigative Committee examining vehicle recalls in Cyprus.
Police officers involved in the investigation of these cases, as well as a third case of serious injury that occurred in 2017, also testified before the Committee.
The father of Kyriakos Oxinos, the young man who lost his life on January 24, 2023, stated that they never received any notification from Pilakoutas Group, which represents BMW in Cyprus, even though the vehicle, model E46, had been included in BMW’s global recall program since 2020. He said that the car was purchased from the dealership in December 1999 as a gift from the family to his mother, but until the fatal accident, there had been no notification.
He also said that on his own initiative, he met with the then new Minister of Transport, Alexis Vafeades, on April 25, 2023.
“I wanted to emphasize to them that if nothing was done, there would be more victims in the future. I received assurances that they would deal with it immediately,” he said.
When asked by Committee Chairman Michalakis Christodoulou whether he knew if the Ministry was aware of the airbag issue, he expressed the view that the Minister, who had been appointed a month earlier, would not have had time to be informed.
However, he went on, the Ministry’s Permanent Secretary at the time, Yiannis Nicolaides, who was the most important person in the Ministry and also head of the Road Transport Department (TOM), did not say anything. He added that although the Minister instructed the then director to investigate what had happened with TOM, two months later he was transferred to the Deputy Ministry of Welfare.
For her part, Kyriakos’ mother, Maria Loui, said that she learned the word TAKATA in 2023, after her child’s death. As she said, when the police investigator called them after the accident, he implied that all of Kyriakos’ injuries were to his face. After that, she added, she began to wonder and searched the internet for deaths caused by airbags and came across the word TAKATA.
“I saw that this was a global scandal and that there had been 1 million recalls, and in Cyprus everyone was indifferent,” she said.
She added that the car involved in the accident in 2017 was the same model as Kyriakos’, also noting that although investigations were carried out and conclusions were reached, the Electrical and Mechanical Services Department told them that only the Nicosia police director had been informed and no other relevant authorities.
Yiannakis Georgallis, father of 21-year-old Styliani, who lost her life on October 21, 2025, while driving a Toyota Yaris, said that the vehicle his daughter was driving was manufactured in 2003 and had been purchased from a dealer in Cyprus in late 2006 or early 2007 after being imported from Japan.
After the tragic accident, Georgallis tried to find out if there was a recall for the vehicle. He said that they accessed a recall platform that had been recommended to them and which concerned the company in Japan—since Toyota Cyprus did not recognize the specific car—but it did not show that there was a recall. He also said that although he immobilized the car after the accident on January 17, 2025, he received a message from TOM that the car was under recall.
He then stated that recalls were also sent for the rest of the family’s cars. He added that he went to the Toyota dealership in Paralimni, bringing with him the title deeds for the family’s three cars. As stated, two of them — his wife’s and his son’s — were subject to recall. The third, his own, was also recalled, but he was told that it could not be replaced because it was an imported vehicle from Japan and “he had to pay.”
Members of the police who investigated the accidents also testified before the Committee.
Traffic investigator Giannos Santafianos, who was in charge of investigating the accident that claimed the life of Kyriakos Oxinos, said that the experts’ report is currently with the Law Office for further evaluation. The case is still under investigation.
According to his statement, the autopsy at the scene of the accident revealed that the damage to the victim’s vehicle, in the driver’s seat, was not such as to explain Kyriakos’ death on its own.
He said that due to the problem that occurred during the collision, metal parts of the airbag were ejected towards Kyriakos Oxinos’ face, causing fatal injuries.
Panikos Drousiotis, head of the Famagusta Traffic Police, said that the police investigation into the accident that claimed the life of 19-year-old Styliani Georgalli on October 21, 2024, is still ongoing.
He said that during the investigation, it was found that the vehicle’s airbag was manufactured by TAKATA. Toyota had recalled this specific type of airbag in 2017. However, in the case of the car driven by Styliani, no recall number had been issued, as the vehicle had been exported from Japan before being included in the official lists. This is a so-called “gray import.”
According to Drousiotis, in December 2024, a technician from Toyota Belgium was called in to check out the vehicle. The Department of Road Transport had contacted the official distributor for more info, but the chassis numbers they sent weren’t recognized in the system. He added that it remains unknown whether it is subject to recall and belongs to the category of “gray imports” imported by third parties, and that neither the manufacturer nor the distributor bears institutional responsibility.
The Committee Chairman announced that the next meetings have been scheduled for May 5 and 6 at 10 a.m., and the Director of the Road Transport Department and former directors will be invited to testify.
Furthermore, Michalis Vorkas, member of the TAKATA Airbag Investigation Committee, described as particularly important the fact that state services were informed of accidents and the causes of injury or death of drivers in vehicles with problematic airbags, as he said in his statements after today’s Committee meeting.
He said that all positions have been noted so far, all will be taken into account, and the relevant questions will be put to those responsible for providing answers.
When asked whether the Police Chief would be called to confirm whether the relevant authorities had been informed about the airbag issue, he said that what they heard today and is the most interesting, is that the other state services were informed about accidents and the causes of injury or death of vehicles passengers.
( Source: CNA)
