Honda Motor Co's U.S. unit said on Friday it has linked the September 2014 death of a woman in Los Angeles, California, to the rupture of a Takata airbag inflator, bringing to eight the number of fatalities related to defective Takata airbags. U.S. highway safety regulators also confirmed that the death of Jewel Brangman in a 2001 Honda Civic is the seventh U.S. death, and the eighth fatality worldwide related to Takata airbag inflators that can explode, sending shards of metal through the passenger compartments of cars.