text: Officials confirm death of missing woman 
   
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   Rubén Cantú-Rodríguez/Conexión Del Río 
   
   DEL RIO – Maverick County officials confirmed this Wednesday morning, August 24, 2016, the passing of Lucila Robles, 69-years-of-age. The woman, who worked at Laughlin Air Force Base, in Del Rio, Texas, was killed during the explosion of a truck and trailer loaded with airbag cartridges near Quemado, Texas. 
   
   Forensic tests confirmed the identity of the woman who passed away Monday morning. Dental pieces found at the scene were analyzed by the Medical Examiner in Laredo, Texas. Robles was pronounced dead this Wednesday morning, at 11:35 a.m. by Justice of Peace June Smith. 
   
   The Maverick County Sheriff’s Department announced that the two-day search comes to an end. 
   
   According to authorities the woman, who lived alone at her home located on U.S. Highway 277, near the intersection with FM 1666, was alone Monday morning, when the truck came off the road, caught on fire and exploded just in front of the structure. 
   
   The truck, hauling a flatbed trailer loaded with airbag cartridges, was traveling from Del Rio to the Takata plant in Eagle Pass, Texas. The driver of the truck, identified as Mario Alberto Rodriguez, 20-years-of-age, was injured along with a passenger. They were able to flee the truck before the blast. 
   
   An older couple, traveling in a Toyota SUV, was also injured during the explosion. All four injured victims were transported to a hospital in Eagle Pass, and later airlifted to San Antonio. 
   
   The blast damaged some 10 nearby homes, breaking windows and dislodging doors from their hinges. Pieces of rubble and truck parts were found almost 1 mile away from the place of the explosion. 
   
   The blast cratered the ground and damaged the road, causing the closure of U.S. Hwy 277 for some 30 hours on and off. ||||| In last week’s accident, which occurred in the early hours of Aug. 22, the woman who died, Lucila Robles, 69, was apparently in her home in the town of Quemado, on the Mexico border, when the crash occurred on the road in front of her property before dawn. 
   
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   The blast destroyed the home. The sheriff’s office sent out search parties for Ms. Robles, thinking she may have been carried by the force of the explosion into nearby brush. 
   
   Investigators called off the search after two days when they discovered Ms. Robles’s bones, teeth and other remains in the smoldering debris of her house, said Tom Schmerber, the local sheriff for the county of Maverick. Also injured were the two drivers of the truck, who fled their vehicle after it swerved off the road and crashed, and two passers-by in a car. 
   
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   An internal document provided by a former Takata employee shows that Takata transports its explosive compound more than 2,000 miles across the United States, from its propellant-manufacturing plant in Moses Lake, Wash., to a distribution center just north of the Mexico border in Eagle Pass, Tex. 
   
   The 36-hour journey, manned by two drivers, takes the truck through Boise, Idaho, and Salt Lake City, as well as Albuquerque and Santa Fe, N.M., according to the document, dated October 2007. From Eagle Pass, the propellant is transferred to separate trucks that then travel to Takata’s airbag factory in Monclova, Mexico, according to the document. 
   
   Drivers of the trucks are required to be equipped with fire-resistant clothing, steel-toed boots with rubber soles, safety goggles and helmets, the document says, pointing to the hazardous nature of the cargo. 
   
   Takata said the trucks were carrying the propellant alongside airbag components called inflaters, which are small devices within an airbag that contain the explosive material and which are designed to cause an airbag to inflate in microseconds. The inflaters aboard the truck were newly manufactured, the company said. 
   
   50 miles 10 TEXAS San Antonio Quemado 37 Eagle Pass 35 MEXICO Rio Grande Monclova 281 
   
   In a statement, a spokesman for Takata, Jared Levy, said the company followed all regulatory requirements. 
   
   Glenn P. Wicks, managing director at the Wicks Group, a law firm based in the District of Columbia that specializes in hazmat transportation, said it was not immediately clear whether any federal safety regulations were violated in Takata’s shipping of the propellant and inflaters. Given the severity of the crash, he said, the ammonium nitrate propellant could have triggered an explosion by itself, with or without the inflaters present. 
   
   Still, investigators are likely to scrutinize how the propellant was packaged and shipped, whether the drivers were certified to handle hazardous materials and whether their working hours were within legal limits, Mr. Wicks said. 
   
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   The Department of Transportation said its investigators were working closely with local officials in Texas to look into the crash and explosion. “Every possible factor or factors — including the safety compliance of the motor carrier, the handling of the cargo by the shipper, its packaging, how the truck was placarded, as well as the truck’s routing — and all other aspects will be thoroughly investigated to determine whether there were violations of any U.S. Department of Transportation safety regulations, which exist to protect everyone’s safety,” the agency said. 
   
   The explosion is not Takata’s first accident involving ammonium nitrate. In March 2006, its Monclova plant was severely damaged by a series of blasts blamed on the ammonium nitrate propellant. There were no injuries, although the explosions blew out the windows of nearby homes and forced hundreds of workers and local residents to evacuate. 
   
   Takata said the truck was operated by a subcontractor, which it did not name. The supplier immediately sent personnel to the site and has been cooperating with local investigators, Mr. Levy said in a statement. 
   
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   “Takata has strict safety procedures relating to the transportation of its products that meet or exceed all regulatory requirements,” he said. “Our thoughts are with the family of the woman who died as a result of this accident, and with the four people injured.”
target: – More trouble for Takata: A truck carrying Takata airbag parts and explosives crashed in Texas last week, exploding and killing a woman and injuring four others. Authorities say the truck left a highway in Quemado before dawn on Aug. 22, caught fire outside Lucila Robles' home, then violently exploded after the two drivers were able to escape. Both drivers were injured, along with a couple in a nearby car. The force of the explosion was such that officers searched for the 69-year-old Robles for two days before finding her bones and teeth in the rubble of her destroyed house, a Maverick County sheriff tells the New York Times. Ten other homes were damaged, while debris was found a mile away, per Conexion Del Rio. Takata says the truck contained ammonium nitrate and inflaters—which, combined, allow an airbag to expand. The products were believed to be headed to Takata's distribution center in Eagle Pass, Texas. A Takata rep tells Jalopnik that "the accident caused a fire, which led to an explosion," noting the company "has strict safety procedures relating to the transportation of its products that meet or exceed all regulatory requirements." The Department of Transportation says it is investigating "the safety compliance of the motor carrier, the handling of the cargo by the shipper, its packaging, how the truck was placarded, as well as the truck's routing." (Takata is accused of manipulating testing data.)