Though no litigation currently implicates Ford F250s and Expeditions, Lincoln Navigators and Blackwoods, there is some indication that those vehicles could have the same problems as F150s, adding up to more than 4.1 million vehicles in all. Court documents show that a Ford safety engineering team determined in March 2000 that the door latches on these models didn’t meet federal safety standards. Ford ordered immediate design changes for future vehicles, but decided against a recall — which could have cost up to $527 million — after the company determined the latches could pass a rarely used alternative compliance test. The internal documents, produced by Ford under court order, have emerged in individual cases involving deaths and injuries in crashes when vehicle doors have flown open.

The memos and documents provide a rare glimpse into the decision-making process of an automaker confronted by a safety concern. They show the problem had been investigated by a team of engineers who discovered a manufacturing error by a parts supplier and recommended a recall to replace the handles on vehicles already on the road.

Parts supplier Donnelly Corporation used the wrong specifications when it made a batch of six million door handles, Ford concluded. As a result, the latches could come open at crash forces well below those required in federal safety tests. A March 6, 2000, memo by Ford engineer Bharat Malhotra summarized the investigation into the door handles, the mistake by Donnelly and a possible fix. “It is recommended that a campaign be issued to fix the painted handle vehicles manufactured during 1996-2000,” Malhotra wrote.

Every car and truck sold in the United States must pass the door-latch test, known as Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 206. The test requires door handles to be engineered to withstand a force of 30 G’s, or 30 times as strong as the Earth’s gravity. NHTSA uses a procedure sanctioned by the Society of Automotive Engineers, known as Recommended Practice J839b, to ensure compliance to standard 206.

If an automaker discovers that a vehicle is out of compliance with the safety standard, the manufacturer must recall it and provide a fix at no charge to owners, according to the federal Motor Vehicle Safety Act.

The issue passed from Ford’s Critical Concerns Review Group to its Technical Review Committee and finally to the Field Review Committee, the company’s executive body that has the authority to make a final decision to recall. As of March 27, 2000, a recall was still being planned to increase the torque in the springs of the door handles by 130%, internal documents show.

Less than a week later, on March 30, 2000, a memo from Ford recall coordinator Kelly Zubieta indicated the recall, which had already been assigned a formal company tracking number — “Safety Recall 00S08” — was not warranted. “THIS PROGRAM HAS BEEN CANCELLED AND NO PREVENT ACTION CLOSURE IS NECESSARY,” Zubieta wrote.

The recall was canceled after a Ford engineer, James Salmon, determined the latches could pass an alternate compliance test, according to testimony in an April 2004 door-latch trial. The other test, known as a crash pulse test, was first approved in 1967, according to a letter to General Motors Corporation from Dr. William Haddon, chief of the National Highway Safety Bureau, NHTSA’s predecessor. The alternate test requires door latches to stand up to a brief impulse rather than continuous force.

Ford's problem may lie in the fact that the 1967 GM pulse test is apparently not sanctioned by NHTSA. A 1975 letter from NHTSA to Mercedes-Benz seems to indicate that the agency will accept only the continuous force 30-G test to verify compliance. “Any government inertia load compliance testing will be done in accordance with paragraph 5 of SAE Recommended Practice J839b,” NHTSA wrote.

Even if the door handles met the federal requirement, research published by Salmon suggests they would not be safe in a real-world crash. In a 1997 paper published by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Salmon estimated real-world crashes can generate forces on door handles as high as 180 G’s, six times the force required to meet the federal safety standard. Company documents indicate the door latch in question was redesigned in 2000 to withstand a force of 400 G’s. The new latches were immediately shipped to assembly lines and were distributed to dealers as replacement parts. But owners of the 1997-2000 trucks were not notified of questions arising about the door latches.

On April 21, 2004, the automaker reached a confidential cash settlement with the families of two sisters killed in a February 15, 2002, rollover crash involving a 1999 F-150. The settlement came just before closing arguments in a four-week trial in Zapata, Texas. This is believed to be the first case that focused on the door-latch issue to go to trial.

At least 15 other individual suits are pending or have been settled involving injuries or deaths from crashes in which Ford truck doors have come open. The cases include:

* On September 20, 2001, Deborah Seliner was thrown from a 1997 F-150 during a single-vehicle rollover crash. Seliner was unbelted. She fractured her neck and is now a quadriplegic. Seliner reached a confidential cash settlement with Ford earlier this month.

* Zachary Strickland, 18, was ejected through the passenger door opening in a new F150 in a May 17, 1997, crash in Loris, South Carolina, suffering a paralyzing injury. Strickland was wearing a seat belt, but the belt came loose after his truck was struck in the side by another truck traveling 55 mph to 60 mph, according to court documents. Strickland has lost the use of all of his limbs.