Posted on 09/22/2023 3:12:02 PM PDT by DFG
About 100 planes around the world have been caught up in a scandal that would be cartoonish if it weren’t so terrifying. It saw a dubious company, with fake employees and an address that was a glorified PO box, sell and distribute fake airplane parts that ended up in planes belonging to some of the world’s biggest airlines. On Thursday night, American Airlines became the fourth, and so far final, airline to have found parts from AOG Technics in its aircraft. Southwest kicked off the disclosures from various airlines around the world in early September, when it became the first to announce it had located an unregistered part from AOG Technics.
American Airlines “identified the uncertified components on a small number of aircraft,” according to an emailed statement to Fortune, while Southwest told Fortune it had identified one engine that contained two parts from AOG Technics.
The parts scandal comes as the latest development in a series of difficulties that have embroiled the airline industry. It has had two consecutive summers plagued with seemingly constant flight delays and cancellations as “revenge travel” grips a worldwide public eager to get out after a pandemic-era hibernation. American Airlines and United both had to navigate the high-wire act of negotiating new pilots union contracts—and both did so successfully. But the prospect of faulty parts, albeit affecting a small fraction of the world’s fleet of roughly 25,500 commercial aircraft, is swiftly piling up delays. Regulators, airlines, and parts suppliers around the world are scrambling to track down possible bogus parts as the AOG Technics scandal spreads from the U.S. all the way to Australia.
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...
The Apollo program in Downey, CA, had strict rules. The manufacture of bolts had to be certified at every step. 1. A single bolt was subjected to rigorous testing. 2. The steel rod it was milled from had been tested. 3. The billet from which the rod was extruded was tested. 4. The ingot from which the billet was forged was tested. 5. They knew where the iron ore had come from. 6. They knew which mine and what shaft the iron ore had come from. That’s how you get a man on the moon.
Never buy airplane parts from a religious denomination.
“American Airlines “identified the uncertified components on a small number of aircraft,””
Make me feel better that only a ‘small number’ of American Airlines flights are going to crash.
Thanks for sharing.
How scary!
Probably all cheap China scrap being sold, by these scammers, now.
Bona fides. Means good faith.
Thats the “formal” meaning. The informal meaning is: documentary evidence showing a person’s legitimacy; credentials. Doing due diligence REQUIRES checking/vetting those “bonafides” not taking them “on faith”.
“After Southwest’s suppliers conducted a review of its parts the company removed two low pressure turbine blades from one of its jets.”
Here’s what I’d like clarified - most airlines only lease the engines on their aircraft so how is it that SWA knows the parts suppliers on internal engine parts without involving the engine manufacturer’s leasing and service personnel? Another factoid on SWA is their use of outside the US service facilities ought to be questioned on this matter.
I have a friend in the fastener business— industrial, but not aviation, or nuclear. Back when the fake fastener scandals hit in the 1990s, he said that nine times out of ten the root problem was not Chinese manufacturers mismarking cheap bolts as expensive to swindle American bolt importers, but American bolt importers getting Chinese manufacturers to mismark cheap bolts as expensive, so that the American bolt importers could swindle their own customers. Certainly the Chinese manufacturers knew what was what, but they were, nine times out of ten, delivering exactly the product their American importer clients wanted.
I guessed that as you couldn’t spell it you might not know where it comes from. And all that means, in fact,”good faith.” It is all the reasons you can have good faith in the product or person.
Nice story. Not probable. I ran R&D for two of world’s largest biomed device companies for decades, then CEO of small cardiovascular biomed group. I depended upon good QA and traceability.
My point is that as an undergrad, I worked summers in one of the largest taconite mines in MN. The mines worked 24/7/365 but shipping via Great lakes ore carriers was 9-10 months of the year. Production from all shifts was stockpiled and shipped out once the ice was off or the locks open. No way traceability extended to the particular open pit; let alone the shift.
I’d be happy to provide photos of the stockpiles and the shovels gnawing away at the periphery of the snow-covered mountain of pellets.
Yes, and this was the same apollo program that they routinely found tools left in the capsules during build, shoddy work, etc, until 3 astronauts died on the launch pad due to a fire from shoddy work, and and a stupid design that had a high oxygen pressurized environment and a door that had to swing inward to open.... THEN, and ONLY they got serious about enforcing their standards etc.
“Ah, but then again not all airlines do their own maintenance today, and if they don’t someone else is in charge of securing the right aircraft parts.”
That’s the problem. It was probably a downstream supplier to a subcontractor of a subcontractor that saved a few bucks by buying Chinese knock-offs. Companies outsource as much as possible, it saves money but makes quality control impossible.
Nitpicking and irrelevant.
Or the other airlines involved. Inqiring traveller’s want to know.
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