U.S. automaker General Motors has fired 15 employees and disciplined five others over a delayed recall for a faulty ignition switch that's been linked to at least 13 deaths.
GM CEO Mary Barra made the announcement to employees during a town hall meeting in suburban Detroit this morning, the Associated Press reports.
She outlined the results of an internal investigation into the recall of 2.6 million older small cars for the switch problem.
It found that a pattern of incompetence and neglect, not a cover-up or conspiracy, was to blame.
Barra called the investigation "brutally tough" and "deeply troubling." She promised to "fix the failures in our system."
Last month, the automaker paid a $35 million fine for failing to disclose the defect to federal regulators for more than a decade.