The encyclopedia · Product & Design · Product decision · 2017-2020
Crock-Pot's pressure cooker let its lid come off while still pressurized
Sunbeam's Crock-Pot Express Multi-Cooker could be opened while still pressurized, expelling scalding contents — 99 burn injuries led to a 943,000-unit recall.
Sunbeam Products · 2020-11-24
What happened
Sunbeam's Crock-Pot 6-Quart Express Crock Multi-Cooker, model SCCPPC600-V1, could be used as either a pressure cooker or a slow cooker. Its lid could be removed while pressure, heat and steam were still trapped inside — the lid-lock mechanism didn't reliably prevent this — violently expelling scalding contents onto whoever opened it.
Sunbeam received 119 reports of the lid detaching under pressure, resulting in 99 burn injuries ranging from first-degree to third-degree. The CPSC and Sunbeam recalled about 914,430 units in the US and 28,330 in Canada on November 24, 2020, covering cookers manufactured between July 2017 and October 2018.
The remedy was a free replacement lid, engineered to fasten down securely, mailed to owners who registered — with instructions to stop using the pressure-cooker mode entirely until the new lid arrived.
Why it happened
- A pressure cooker's core safety requirement — the lid can't come off while contents are still pressurized — failed on a model sold over a year before the injury count triggered a recall.
- 119 reports of the same failure mode preceded the recall, meaning the defect was a known, repeating pattern rather than a rare malfunction by the time Sunbeam acted.
The lesson
A pressure-cooker lid that comes off under pressure has failed the one thing it exists to do — 119 identical reports arrived before Sunbeam treated it as a recall, not a support ticket.
Aftermath
Sunbeam shipped free replacement lids to registered owners and product-liability lawsuits followed the recall, with claims citing the same lid-lock defect across multiple burn injuries.
Sources
- NBC News — Nearly 1 million Crock-Pots recalled after complaints of burn injuries
- PR Newswire — Crock-Pot 6-Quart Express Crock Multi-Cookers Recalled by Sunbeam Products Due to Burn Hazard
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