Attorney of Record for
Ford Mustang Fires

Joseph A. Fried
Law Offices of Joseph A. Fried, PC
4400 Peachtree Road, NE
Atlanta, GA 30319-2729
404-591-1800
404-591-1801 fax
info@jafpc.com
mygeorgiainjurylawyers.com
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BLUEOVALNEWS.COM

Mustang: Ford's Firebomb

During the August 17, 1999, airing of CBS' 60 Minutes II, Harold Gielow, Sr., told reporter Dan Rather, "This is going to happen again, unless people know about it."   Gielow was referring to the fiery death of his 16 year-old son, Harold, who was driving his 1966 Ford Mustang on July 15, 1999, and was involved in a rear-end collision.  The Mustang exploded into flames.  This wasn't the first time a Mustang caught fire after being hit from the rear, nor would it be the last.  Every Mustang ever built has the same design flaws as those of the infamous Pinto.
 

•	December 15, 1990: A 1984 Ford Mustang stalls in the right lane of Interstate 30 in Dallas, Texas.  The 23-year-old driver, Tracey Benefield, is still behind the wheel when the Mustang is hit from behind and explodes into flames.  Trapped inside, Benefield burns to death.
•	January 8, 1994: A 1988 Mustang stalls at a toll booth on the Green River Parkway south of Owensboro, Kentucky.  The driver and toll booth operator are trying to push the Mustang out of the way when it is struck from behind and erupts into an inferno.  Ann Marie Ashworth, Brandie Phegley and Stacy Clouse are trapped inside and burn alive.
•	January 17, 2000:  Daniele Wright, driving a 1996 Mustang Convertible on Interstate 285 outside Atlanta spins out in the rain and stops near the median wall.  The Mustang is hit in the rear corner by a passing Honda and is instantly engulfed in fire.  Daniele frantically tries to escape, but the doors are jammed shut.  She manages to climb out through the burning roof of the convertible, suffering burns to over 95 percent of her body.  She suffered no injuries from the forces of the collision, but spends the last 38 days of her life in an Intensive Care Unit before dying from burn related injuries.
•	September 17, 2000:  Fermin Rovira loses control of his 1989 Mustang Convertible while traveling on U.S. 101 in Los Angeles, California, and collides with the median wall.  A passing Honda strikes the rear of the disabled Mustang and the Mustang bursts into flames.  Rovira escapes, but his three passengers are trapped inside until being freed by witnesses at the scene.  One occupant died from her burn injuries 15 days later.  A second survived with serious burn injuries leaving her permanently disfigured and disabled.  The third occupant survived with minor burns.
•	June 9, 2002:  In Chico, California, Edward Embree slows his 1993 Mustang in traffic due to fire department activity from an earlier brush fire.  The Mustang is struck in the left rear by a 1995 Ford Taurus.  The Mustang immediately bursts into flames.  Embree used his last precious moments to push his fiancé out of the burning Mustang.  This saved her life, but Embree ran out of time to escape and was consumed in the flaming Mustang.

How big is the problem and how long has it been going on?

According to media sources, Ford has been sued more than 70 times by the families of those who have burned alive following rear impacts to classic Mustangs, those built from 1964 through 1970.

Many more people have burned alive in Mustangs built after 1970.  Indeed, during the mid 1970’s the Mustang and the Pinto shared the same fuel system and rear structure design.  Not surprisingly, more people have burned alive in Mustangs of that era than did in the Pinto.  When the Pinto was recalled, the Mustang should have been but was not.

In 1979, Ford released an all new Mustang.  They had a chance to correct the design flaws, but instead chose to leave the fuel tank in the rear crush zone where it would be vulnerable in a rear crash.  Not surprisingly, rear impact fires continued and more people have burned alive.  One unofficial count that relies heavily on Ford’s own reports documents at least 36 rear impact fire collisions in 1979-1993 Mustangs.  Many of these claimed the lives of multiple people.

Ford redesigned the Mustang again for 1994.  Another chance to fix the design defects; another opportunity that Ford let slide.  Amazingly, the fuel tank was left in the crush zone at the rear of the Mustang, only inches inside the rear bumper.  More people continue to burn.  Another unofficial count now accounts over 200 people who have burned alive in Mustangs since they first hit the streets.

Remember the Pinto

The Pinto caught fire after rear impact for the same reason Mustangs continue to do so today:  the fuel tank is located behind the rear axle, near the rear bumper, in an area that is expected to crush in a rear impact.  While the Pinto was recalled and ultimately taken out of production because of the problem, the Mustang was not.  Today, every production Mustang on the road, regardless of style or the year it was built, has the same defect:  The fuel tank is located in the rear crush zone and it is not adequately protected.  Ford has known about this defect and hazard for decades and has steadfastly denied the problem and refused to act to fix it.

In 1979, when the Mustang was taken off the Pinto platform and placed on what Ford calls the Fox platform, Ford had the opportunity and technology to relocate the fuel tank.  Due to cost considerations, however, Ford chose to maintain its dangerous fuel system.  The fire history on the Fox platform vehicles, which include the LTD, LTD II, Granada, Thunderbird, Tempo and Lincoln Mark V-VII is extensive.  For Fox platform Mustangs alone, those built between 1979 and 1993, there have been close to, if not more, 50 rear impact fire related deaths.  When all Fox platform vehicles are included, all vehicles with rear mounted vulnerable fuel tanks, the numbers become staggering.

In the Mustang, the deathtrap scenario is compounded by a second problem, especially in convertibles.  Ford’s own testing shows that, in rear-end collisions, the Mustang’s doors jam shut and cannot be opened without tools by either the occupants trapped inside the burning car or from outside by potential rescuers.  Ford's own testing predicted what happened to Daniele Wright and many others.  It is hard to imagine what it must be like to be trapped in a burning car.  How can a manufacturer allow this to continue?

What’s ‘Reasonable?’
 

It requires no sophisticated crash testing to arrive at a simple conclusion:  a person who otherwise survives a crash should not subsequently burn to death because the fuel system fails.  Even Ford employees acknowledge this principle:  John Coletti, Ford’s program manager for the 1994 Mustang, said so when he was questioned under oath in October 2001:

Q. (N)o matter what the speed of the impact is, no matter what the angle of the collision is, is there any acceptable reason to you where somebody would be burned alive in a product for which you were the program manager?

A. I would have to say it's not reasonable to expect that … a person would survive the impact but some kind of fuel system integrity problem would cause him to burn.

In fact, Ford boasts in sales brochures that its Mustang is “well-engineered for your safety.”  Ford knew better.  Research on fuel tank safety has been conducted since the 1950s and earlier.  That research concluded unequivocally that locating the fuel tank behind the rear axle is an unsafe design.  The research recommended safer designs, such as locating the fuel tank over the rear axle or under the rear seat where it would have much greater protection in an impact of any angle.  Further research produced additional safer designs, such as the fuel-cell bladders, fuel tank liners and better fuel tank shields.  Ford’s own design engineers and their design documents evidence that locating the fuel tank under the rear seat is a safer location and that there would be less chance of a post collision fuel fed fire if the tanks were moved there.  Indeed, Ford has moved the fuel tank to a safer location in almost all of their modern cars, the only real exceptions being the Mustang and the Crown Victoria (which also has a rear impact fire problem and is the subject of a recent recall to add additional crash shields).

Mustang’s Stubborn History

In 1970, almost all cars had fuel tanks located behind the rear axle.  By 1994, however, more than 97% of cars no longer had fuel tanks in this location.  Two lone exceptions in the Ford carline were the Mustang and the Crown Victoria.  The sporty car’s design history tells why:
 

•	1964 – The safer technology was already being tested when the first “Vintage” Mustangs rolled off the production line with their rear-mounted fuel tanks.
•	1974 – Safety designs were well known by Ford by the time it rolled out the Mustang II, now built on a Pinto platform.  In developing the Mustang II, Ford had crash-tested a 1970 Mustang outfitted with a fuel tank above the rear axle.  The car was backed into a fixed barrier at 30 miles an hour, the equivalent of a 60 mph car-to-car crash.  At the time, Ford believed the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) was going to adopt this safety standard.  The test car did very well – no gas leaks.  Yet, when NHTSA dropped the higher standard and went to a lesser moving barrier test at 30 mph (the moving barrier test is much easier to pass and not representative of real world crashes) Ford abandoned the safer design and chose to leave the fuel tank in the rear.  An internal Ford document explained why: “Tank-over-axle cost penalties and package disadvantages to the station wagon, fastback and Ranchero are great enough that this tank location will be recommended only when the 30 mph barrier crashworthiness capability level has been confirmed as necessary.”

In other words, unless forced to do so by government standards, Ford didn't want to pay the cost which would have been involved in reconfiguring the car to relocate the fuel tank .  These Federal Standards have never been upgraded.
 

•

1979 – With the demise of the Pinto, the Mustang was again redesigned, once more without relocating the fuel tank.  The new chassis, called the “Fox” platform, survived until 1993 (and survives still under a new code name). By the mid 1980s, Ford knew no jury would ever accept the minimal federal standards crash test as a reasonable level of safety.  Ford knew this standard was too low and did not reasonably test real world crash conditions.  Ford also knew it was up to juries to decide what constituted a reasonable level of safety and what constituted a reasonable crash test program.  Ford adopted a more stringent internal crash test standard, including actual car-to-car crash tests at 50 MPH in three different modes (inline, offset and rear side on filler neck side).  Although Ford would admit it was state of the art for its cars to be able to meet the new internal safety standards by 1986, Ford exempted the Mustang from these standards.  They did not even try to meet the new internal standards because they knew the car wouldn't pass. By 1994, the only car left on the Fox platform was the Mustang.  All other former Fox platform cars were either discontinued or redesigned onto more modern platforms.  All the redesigned cars saw relocation of the fuel tank and immediate improvements in fuel system crash safety.  As Ford had been considering dropping the Mustang as one of its less profitable cars, little engineering expenditures were approved for the Mustang in the mid to late 1980's.  At the last minute they chose to keep the car and a rushed and inexpensive program was put together to design a new Mustang.

•

1994 – Ford released a new version of the Mustang, code named SN95.  Again, Ford left the fuel tank behind the rear axle.  During the development of the SN95 Mustang, it was subjected to 22 rear crash tests for fuel system integrity.  When the rear impact 50 MPH car-to-car crash tests were first produced by Ford in litigation, all the reports read as failures with significant gas leaks.  Eight and a half years after the last test was conducted, and days before a Ford engineer was scheduled for deposition to address the crash tests, Ford officials changed the last report to a “pass,” claiming that in fact no fuel had spilled and the original report was wrong - the result of what amounted to a clerical error.  Even if this test demonstrated a pass, which is highly questionable, should one test give Ford confidence in the ability of the fuel system to maintain its integrity in real world crashes when the consequences of being wrong means that more people will burn alive?  Ford cannot demonstrate that the SN95 Mustang met its internal fuel system integrity safety standards.

What about the doors and the ability to escape the fire?
Ford has another internal safety standard which provides for doors to be openable without tools after a rear impact.  The reason for this standard is apparent – nothing could be worse than being trapped in a burning car.  Yet, of all the rear impact crash tests that were done for the SN95 Mustang, only three times could the Mustang doors be opened after the crash.  In every single test of the Mustang convertible in which the doors were tested for openability after the crash, they were jammed shut.  Did Ford fix the problem?  Amazingly, no!  Instead of fixing the problem, the Ford engineers filed a deviation report within Ford seeking permission from upper management to sell the car anyway – even though it did not meet this important safety requirement.
 

•

1999 – Ford crash-tested the 1999 Mustang as well.  Internal Ford documents show that of eight Mustangs tested at 50 MPH, six lost more than a gallon of fuel on impact and one lost more than five ounces (Ford guidelines allow one ounce of spillage on impact and one ounce of leakage per minute afterwards).  The eighth test was a rollover crash, which the Mustang also failed.

Why the stubborn refusal to alter the design of the Mustang to accommodate a more safely located fuel tank?  As early as 1973, Ford was making its position clear.  In yet another internal document, Ford dismissed a NHTSA estimate than 2,000 to 3,500 persons were dying each year in collision fires, insisting the National Safety Council’s estimate of 600 to 700 was “probably more appropriate.”  Ford reduced its reasoning to dollars and cents:  After calculating a “value” for the lives of burn victims and comparing it to the “cost” of fixing the problem, Ford concluded it was cheaper to not fix the problem and to allow their customers to burn alive.

The simple truth is that Ford will not fix the problem until either the government mandates it or juries demand it in the form of large punitive damages awards.
 

Ford in Denial?

Know Not:  Some things Ford has chosen not to know.  For example, it has never crash-tested a production model SN95 Mustang to verify the findings of its pre-production tests and computer simulations.  It has also never tested a Mustang in a “corner” collision to see what would happen if its rear corner is struck at an angle, despite engineers’ admissions this would produce results “distinct and different” from those of a typical rear-ender.  Unfortunately, the only crash tests where this mode has been tested are those which have occurred in the real world and the consequences have been devastating.

Show Not:  Ford declines to defend its own sales brochures’ safety claims in open court.  Questioned under oath, Jack Ridenour, a Ford corporate representative, conceded that whenever a case arises in which inspections show that Ford has “a problem,” the case is settled out of court.

Q. I think you also told me that, although you've worked on several Fox Mustang pre-SN95 Fox Mustang cases, you don't recall any one of those going to trial; correct?

A. That's correct, I don't recall any of them going to trial.

Change Not. Ford persists in marketing cars with what one manager called “vastly outdated” technology.  Writing in a term paper for a Ford management masters program, a paper meant for internal Ford distribution only, Paul Randall candidly acknowledged in 1994 that the then freshly minted SN95 Mustang’s “rear wheel drive, ‘fixed beam’ rear suspension system, has been in the vehicle since the early sixties.” 

He also noted that “(h)istorically…senior management has grown up with a focus on ‘cost containment and complexity reduction,’ as opposed to delivering quality to the customers.”

Speak Not.  Despite its knowledge of the safety hazards built into the Mustang, Ford chooses not to warn its customers of the Mustang's failure of so many of its own tests, both for fuel system integrity and the ability of doors to remain openable after impact.

How could this happen at Ford?

While Ford employs excellent world class engineers, they are not permitted to do their jobs to the best of their ability, nor are they provided with information about the real world performance of Ford products.

When the SN95 Mustang Program Manager and Chief Engineer were questioned under oath, both admitted Ford had not told them of the many incidents of post rear impact fires which had occurred in Fox platform Mustangs.  Ford had knowledge, but chose not to tell its own program managers.  Since they did not know the extent of the problem, they had no reason to even consider moving the fuel tank.

Another reality is that Ford’s business and engineering practices prevent the design of safe and robust fuel systems.  During the last class of a fuel system design class held at Ford in 1991, over one hundred Ford engineers discussed the problem openly and their conclusions were recorded.  At the time, they had no idea their conclusions would find their way into public hands.

Solutions

The answers to the Mustang’s fuel system integrity problems have been known for decades:
 

1.	The Mustang fuel tank should be located out of the rear crush zone; or
2.	The Mustang’s rear structure should be modified to provide better protection for the fuel tank and the fuel tank should be fully shielded in all directions.  In the alternative, a safety fuel cell bladder tank should replace the existing fuel tank (Ford uses them standard on their racing version of the Mustang and they are commercially available today)
3.	Ford should warn customers of the significant risk of post-collision fires in Mustangs and the distinct danger that a rear-end collision, the kind most likely to ignite a fuel-fed fire, will also cause the doors to jam shut, especially in convertible models.
4.	NHTSA desperately needs to update its guidelines and crash-testing for fuel system integrity to more closely reflect real-world collisions.  This would force Ford to redesign future Mustangs so they are safer in rear impacts.

(09/30/02)