October 2014

PE REPORT
Florida PE Helps Solve GM Ignition Switch Mystery

THIS SUBJECT-TYPE IGNITION ASSEMBLY FROM A 2005 CHEVROLET COBALT WAS EXAMINED BY MARK HOOD, P.E., DURING HIS INVESTIGATION TO DETERMINE THE CAUSE OF BROOKE MELTON’S FATAL ACCIDENT IN 2010.

When Brooke Melton was killed in a tragic accident in 2010 while driving her 2005 Chevrolet Cobalt in Georgia, her parents sought answers through a lawsuit against General Motors. It was a professional engineer from Florida whose investigation helped find those answers.

Forensic engineering work by Mark Hood, P.E., led to the discovery that a faulty ignition switch was behind the fatal accident. The Melton family’s pursuit of answers led to a deeper investigation revealing that GM engineers redesigned the ignition switches, but information about the problems and changes failed to move up the corporate chain of command.

In February, GM issued a recall of nearly 3 million vehicles to replace faulty ignition switches. The switches, which were below normal design specifications, caused affected vehicles to stall and airbags failed to deploy during accidents.

A report released in May highlighted the engineering design flaws, which have been linked to 54 crashes and more than a dozen deaths, and the corporate culture that influenced a failure of leadership. The report, combined with scrutiny at the federal level and public outcry, has led GM CEO Mary Barra to implement major safety measures and to work on establishing a culture of safety and ethical responsibility. Fifteen employees involved with the problem were also fired, and the company is providing victim compensation.

Hood became involved with the Melton family investigation and lawsuit in October 2012, when he was contacted by the family’s attorney Lance Cooper. Since 1995, Hood has served as a consultant with McSwain Engineering, a failure analysis and engineering investigation firm in Pensacola, Florida. He gained his failure analysis and nondestructive testing experience when he started his career at the Naval Aviation Depot, performing failure analysis on aircraft parts and assisting with accident investigations. Hood didn’t need a professional license to perform engineering work with the Naval Aviation Depot, but he became a PE in 1998 because it was essential to his new career path involving product litigation cases and providing expert testimony.

Prior to contacting Hood, the Melton family’s attorney had been working with an auto mechanic who initially suspected a power steering problem because of a Cobalt recall related to this issue. Evaluation of airbag module data and diagnostic testing by the expert ruled out a power steering issue, says Hood, but revealed that a closer examination and comparison of the ignition switch of a 2005 Cobalt and later models were in order. “We conducted preliminary evaluations and determined that if you compared the torque on a switch that had been pulled out of a 2005 Cobalt, it was lower than the torque from a replacement switch purchased from the dealer,” he says. “That is what started us down the avenue that we pursued, eventually testing the switch from Brooke’s vehicle.”

Hood began collecting switches from wrecked 2005–08 model Cobalts he found in salvage yards to evaluate the torque and compare them to the switch in Brooke Melton’s vehicle.

After gathering torque data for all of the switches, Hood began a destructive testing phase of examining the switches. He also evaluated photographs and x-rays of different switches. “Once I got the switches apart and compared the detent plunger in low torque switches with new switches that had a higher torque, it was pretty obvious that the detent plunger part had been changed,” he says.

Hood informed Cooper of his findings and provided a deposition for the lawsuit. Cooper would proceed to depose GM engineers who initially denied that anything had been changed. “At this point, with everything that has come out, we know that in April 2006 they did actually make changes to the switch. We never found that out during the course of the Melton’s litigation; that information came out after the recall.”

Hood is glad his professional engineering investigation played a critical role in providing answers to the Melton family and others affected by tragedy. “It appears that there is even more awareness because there have been vehicle recalls on different vehicles,” he says. “This investigation has brought these types of safety issues to the forefront, and that has been rewarding.”