21 ms·
FAA investigating how counterfeit titanium got into Boeing and Airbus jets
- bell-cot 2y agoHowever much you can "save" by outsourcing...in a sufficiently fraud-plagued business environment, it's seldom worth it longer-term. Conveniently, modern businesses and their leaders are judged and rewarded purely on short-term metrics.
- icegreentea2 2y agoWhat was the problematic outsourcing decision here? Buying your titanium from a titanium supplier? Is Spirit supposed to be refine and foundry all their own metal alloys? I agree that it's a little bonkers that Boeing spun off it's own aerostructures, but since it seems like Boeing has it's own problems with internal fraudulent inspection reports, this sure doesn't seem like an out sourcing problem per-se.
- josefx 2y ago> What was the problematic outsourcing decision here? Buying from an untrusted source without any verification of your own in place. > Buying your titanium from a titanium supplier? For all we know they bought it on wish.com. > Is Spirit supposed to be refine and foundry all their own metal alloys? Random sampling of materials to determine if the delivery is fit for purpose should be the absolute minimum.
- constantcrying 2y agoBut the problem isn't outsourcing, it is failed incoming inspection.
- e44858 2y agoSounds like they outsourced the inspection too.
- mrguyorama 2y agoSpirit itself is an "outsourcing" from Boeing's point of view. They spun it off so they could put more aggressive downwards pressure on labor price and then play dumb when it had the obvious and well understood outcomes like "buying underspecced materials to save money" and "workers don't do all the work they should, to save money" and "having different systems to control work so you can massage the official one, to save money by doing less work"
- caminante 2y agoThat's the point. The parent is blaming quality control steps of outsourced materials at Boeing (not third party). "Outsourcing = bad" is missing the point.
- therealpygon 2y agoThat is an interesting point of view, however, needing to distrust and expect fraud from every outsource agency sounds exactly like their point, which was not the elementary “outsource = bad” that you make it out to be.
- caminante 2y agoNo. The parent said that the quality control should be on the supplier, not Boeing. This is instead of a joint problem with Boeing validating. Look at the repercussions. Boeing gambled on shaving procurement oversight and lost.
- pfdietz 2y agoIf sufficiently intense oversight is needed at the boundary then outsourcing becomes uneconomical. This is something SpaceX found (and also because external sources were often slow and expensive.)
- everforward 2y agoAre you sure that applies to commodities with extremely high capital costs like mining and refining ore? It sort of makes sense to me with SpaceX. They’re presumably buying fairly boutique parts that likely already require custom manufacturing, so someone is spending capital either way. I can see how it might make sense for them to build a custom manufacturing line instead of paying someone else. That seems odd for commodities like titanium, though. Even if Boeing were to do it themselves, that oversight process is already a subset of the mining and refining process. They’re going to have to build out their QA lab either way.
- 2y ago
- Beijinger 2y ago"For all we know they bought it on wish.com." Source?
- 2k3r11s 2y agoFor your future reference, the colloquial English expression "For all we know" implies that a humorous exaggeration follows.
- chaostheory 2y agoNot sure if this was technically outsourcing, but moving maintenance overseas to developing countries where agencies like the FAA have a much harder time to inspect the planes. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/11/airplane-maintenance-disturbing-truth https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/11/airplane-maintenance...
- therealpygon 2y agoA company willing to have employees accidentally die when they come down with a case of the whistleblows would do things to make oversight more difficult? I’m shocked, shocked I tell you.
- spywaregorilla 2y agoThe problem was buying titanium* from titanium* suppliers.
- datavirtue 2y agoThey certainly have to perform their own metallurgical analysis and certify the parts. Like, WTF? This is just hillbilly mom-and-pop bullshit.
- constantcrying 2y ago>However much you can "save" by outsourcing...in a sufficiently fraud-plagued business environment, it's seldom worth it longer-term. Outsourcing is mandatory if you are a company in aerospace. How would you even start making an airplane without outsourcing?
- sieabahlpark 2y ago[dead]
- drsnow 2y agoI'd imagine by insourcing.
- constantcrying 2y agoProbably Airbus single most important supplier is CFM who is making most of their engines. CFM is a JV of Safran and General electric. How do you insource that?
- bell-cot 2y agoLiterally, true. But, just like that fraud-plagued business environment, scale is what really matters. If you had 10X fewer suppliers, each with 10X fewer second-tiers, and so on down the chain...then how much easier would it be for Purchasing's QC people to stop sub-spec crap from reaching your factory floor?
- stn8188 2y agoI feel like this goes for personal life too. My particular problem du jour: some parts internal to my lawn mower engine crankcase self destructed and the engine needs a total rebuild or replacement. I replaced the camshaft 2 years ago with a cheapo Amazon part and I'll forever be kicking myself wondering if saving $20 on that destroyed a $1k (new price) engine.
- therealpygon 2y agoDon’t beat yourself up…you’re probably right. Joking aside, with Amazon, you just never know whether you are going to get a hardened forged steel item, or pot-metal. You can’t even count on that “stainless steel bowl” actually being stainless at all these days. That whole marketplace is a grand example of the exact problem with outsourcing. These days you can’t even rely on price or brand being an indicator of what you will receive (with the counterfeits and intentional overpricing of sub-par items).
- datavirtue 2y agoAmazon has turned into WalMart. Literally all of your choices for a product are a variation of the same cheap crap with different brand names. I would love to have a midling priced item of better quality. Not available. The retailers job used to be offering the best value to their customers by filtering out the crap that was too cheap or overpriced.
- Lisdexamfeta 2y agoIt seems like Boeing has an exceptional amount of normalizing deviance.
- pimlottc 2y agoFor the company as a whole, no, it's not worth it long term. For the division chief who smashed their targets, got a big bonus and a promotion, and used it to jump to a higher-paying role at another company? You better believe it was worth it!
- janalsncm 2y agoIt’s one of the things that’s fundamentally broken in our economic algorithm. There is genuine innovation, and then there is simply borrowing against the future. It’s really hard to tell the difference, and even if you can, the market can still behave irrationally. Even ignoring the political question of how things could be changed in practice, I am struggling to imagine ways to align incentives better.
- JSDevOps 2y agoHow the fuck do you counterfeit titanium it’s one of those things that is either or it’s not.
- Marazan 2y agoIf I show you a lump of metal and I tell you it is titanium how do you know I am not lying?
- DannyBee 2y ago1. It will be non-magnetic 2. Easiest, most accessible testing method is scratching it on tile or glass. When scratched against glass (or ceramic tile), steel will probably leave a real scratch, aluminum will do nothing, titanium will leave a pencil-like line.
- gorbypark 2y agoI am guessing that it was real titanium, just a different grade/alloy/treating process being passed off as something it was not or it's possible it's even the same quality/grade, just of unknown provenance (fell off the back of a truck) and its documents were forged. Seems kinda likely as Boeing says (as I understand from the article) they have tested the parts and it's the correct grade of titanium.
- DannyBee 2y agoSure, i answered the literal question. You are correct that this is what the article says - testing suggests it is in fact titanium, just maybe not the right treatment. That would be harder, but one would think that a company making airframes for aviation, in a highly regulated environment/etc, would occasionally send off samples to double check them. Getting titanium analyzed to a degree you could tell whether it is the right grade/alloy is cheap and fast - I can get it done for <$100 per sample. Given the cost of what they are producing, how few they produce, and how much they sell them for, and how quickly you can get this kind of thing done, they could test every single lot of titanium they get and neither increase cost, nor slow down production. This also isn't a case where there are lots of people in the middle - this supplier is the ones machining and producing the final product from titanium alloys. Also, if you change suppliers, wouldn't you at least test the stuff they give you the first time?
- DannyBee 2y ago"The material, which was purchased from a little-known Chinese company, " Clearly they are ordering this stuff on aliexpress!
- therealpygon 2y agoOr they “shopped like a billionaire” on Temu.
- nxobject 2y agoOr, god forbid, from a Sumerian merchant...
- agomez314 2y agoArchive link?
- baud147258 2y agothis: https://archive.is/GXshA https://archive.is/GXshA ?
- rootusrootus 2y agoIt's pretty easy to go archive.is and get the link yourself.
- draven 2y agohttps://archive.is/MXtEe https://archive.is/MXtEe
- Simulacra 2y agoDo aviation parts have traceability? Like a serial number or qr code that can be used to identify suspect components?
- ramses0 2y agoLoL, I think aviation traceability goes down to which licensed individual installed each screw down to the date, time, hour, and minute. Further traceability goes back into the parts inventory, where I'm not sure of the commingling requirements on something like screws, but (eg) brake pads would almost certainly be traceable to the supplier and then manufacturer. https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fdisciplesofflight.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2015%2F09%2FLogbook_Page.jpg&tbnid=3YmLDxYI0v2TcM&vet=1&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fnorthlineschool.org%2F%3Fe%3Dflying-aircraft-documents-easa-and-faa-merged-zz-DNQyMjTe&docid=yPJqJn91fPKgUM&w=720&h=480&itg=1&hl=en-us&source=sh%2Fx%2Fim%2Fm4%2F3&kgs=d5c0565073cc903a&shem=abme%2Ctrie https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fdisciples...
- sofixa 2y agoSupposedly, anyway. You also have the lovely incompetent folks at Boeing who can't even tell you who worked on removing a plug door and who forgot to put back the bolts holding it down. Thankfully that's a crime though, so hopefully someone (ideally both the fools who did this, and all their managers and managers' managers that cultivated such a culture to allow for such a thing to happen) will go to prison over it.
- constantcrying 2y ago>Do aviation parts have traceability? Like a serial number or qr code that can be used to identify suspect components? Are you kidding? I doubt there is a single industry which empathizes traceability more than aerospace.
- 1992spacemovie 2y ago> Are you kidding? He’s not kidding - just ignorant. Another long running comment on HN where folks think every other industry is as fucked as tech.
- sampa 2y ago[flagged]
- zukzuk 2y ago"politics" is quite the euphemism for "military invasion, violent aggression, and war crimes"!
- Onavo 2y ago"politics" did not stop the US from acquiring Russian Ti during the cold war.
- gravescale 2y agoNo, but when you do that you have to make sure it's used in a maximally ironic way like making a spy plane to use against them. Double points for telling them (or saying you told them) a story that makes them look like mugs in retrospect like "it's for pizza ovens, don't worry about it".
- snakeyjake 2y agoWould be funny if you read the article and learned that the components were first purchased in 2019.
- sampa 2y agowould be funny if I didn't need to do that to know that first sanctions came in 2014, or do I?
- snakeyjake 2y agoVSMPO-AVISMA was not sanctioned until Russia's invasion of Ukraine and was a partner in a joint venture with Boeing up until that time.
- pfdietz 2y agoA famous crash caused by a hidden defect in titanium: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_232 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_232 The accident wasn't total only because of magnificent actions of the flight crew.
- tim333 2y agoThat's quite an impressive story. Also with quite a lot about how hard it is to use titanium properly.
- TomatoCo 2y agoTo belabor the point and repeat a bit from Wikipedia, this was bar-none the absolute perfect flight crew possible. A flight crew with over 65000 hours experience and, riding as a passenger, a training pilot with a further 23000 who had specifically practiced this exact failure (total loss of hydraulics) after a lost craft four years prior. For further reading, https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/fields-of-fortune-the-crash-of-united-airlines-flight-232-9cf65ae14c68 https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/fields-of-fortune-the-cr...
- pavel_lishin 2y agoReminds me of the Gimli Glider, and the incredible coincidence of having an experienced glider pilot as the Captain of that flight: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider
- abofh 2y agoYou hear about the coincidences that work out, you're unlikely to hear about the pilot who was a professional glider who landed his regular flight at Dulles. Thousands of planes in the air every day, that one with engine failure has a pilot who practices without engines isn't surprising. I'd be more surprised if he was a skilled mechanic who repaired the engine in situ.
- 2y ago
- neilv 2y ago> Spirit is trying to determine where the titanium came from, whether it meets proper standards despite its phony documentation, and whether the parts made from the material are structurally sound enough to hold up through the projected life spans of the jets, company officials said. Spirit said it was trying to determine the most efficient way to remove and replace the affected parts if that ended up being necessary. Why are they even considering keeping the counterfeit parts in? Is the situation that Spirit AeroSystems believes the eventual answer will be that the aircraft can't be used with known-counterfeit parts, but they're dancing around liability or PR, or they don't want to grandstand upon their customers' toes?
- tim333 2y agoIt's not exactly counterfeit parts. It's that the paperwork for the titanium supplied wasn't right. So I guess it could be ok titanium with just bad paperwork rather than bad titanium. Also I guess it costs a lot to change.
- nszceta 2y ago[flagged]
- mhh__ 2y agoYou've been downvoted with no retort. Can anyone in the know comment if there's truth to the hypothesis?
- Jtsummers 2y agoI didn't downvote them, but didn't upvote either. "Chinesium" - the supplier it was traced to is Chinese, but the source is unknown beyond that because the documents are falsified. It's also not yet clear if there is a quality issue, the tested parts and materials are turning out ok so far but the lack of provenance makes it difficult to know with any confidence how long the material will last. It could be the right alloy but a low quality production process that will permit much earlier than anticipated failures (potentially critical ones, it's used in both structural and mechanical parts). That's part of why they're investigating how to replace parts made from it, the quality is unknown since there's no way to verify the certifications passed on through the suppliers since it's already known that the certificates are lies. For all we know, this is Russian in source but given false documents to get it sold on the open market bypassing some sanctions or getting some oligarch sitting on a supply some extra money.
- readthenotes1 2y agoA few decades ago: I talked with a business man who said that the Chinese would absolutely perform to contract but no more. Early samples would be excellent, full production would be exactly and only what you asked for. Almost malicious compliance. I talked with a Chinese salesperson who said they always signed contracts with foreigners using their English name. Such contracts are unenforceable. Almost malicious compliance. It's hard for me to have sympathy for complaining about people doing the least they can when you're trying to pay the least you can.
- abakker 2y agoRequired reading: "Poorly made in china" by Paul Midler. Truly a great look at exactly how this happens.
- gumby 2y agoI heartily second this recommendation.
- nickff 2y agoIt's difficult to enforce any international contract, particularly in a country like the People's Republic of China. That said, I don't think signing a contract with a different name gets you anywhere; if your counter-party can show that you signed the contract, or in a corporate context that someone who can reasonably have been presumed to have signing authority did so, you (or the company) is on the hook.
- lupusreal 2y ago> Spirit Aerosystems, based in Wichita, Kansas, which raised the alarm on the titanium issue Heh, they're the good guys in this story apparently.
- silisili 2y agoFor anyone reading this, Spirit Aerosystems is -not- Spirit Airlines. Different company, they manufacture aircraft parts for Boeing, Airbus, etc.
- chris_va 2y agoAnd install door plugs (or not, as the case may be)
- HeWhoLurksLate 2y agoHey now, that was done by Boeing
- nickff 2y agoAccording to most reporting, Spirit removed, then failed to re-install the door. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/boeing-loose-bolts-alaska-airlines-united-airlines-spirit-aerosystems-door-plug/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/boeing-loose-bolts-alaska-airli...
- ajross 2y agoYes, but to be fair the reporting is incomplete because the Boeing-maintained records of the maintenance were incomplete in seemingly-deliberate ways. So... we just don't know. At least one, plausibly two bad guys there.
- lupusreal 2y agoAs far as I can make out, Spirit employees (probably with the knowledge and tacit approval of management, because that's the way these things usually go) found a loophole in the record system that allowed them to avoid triggering QA checks. Boeing has blame for creating a system with such a loophole, or failing to find it before it was used, but it was Spirit personnel who actually used it.
- standardly 2y ago[flagged]
- nimbius 2y agoIf at first your accountability fails, blame your suppliers.
- thriftwy 2y agoPerhaps they came from a certain Republic of Crimea? I've glanced the article but didn't figure out the source.
- wannacboatmovie 2y agoAnother article said it was sourced from the Chinese. This detail was suspiciously deleted from this one.
- Jtsummers 2y agoTurkish supplier who reportedly got it from a Chinese supplier, and where they got it from is unknown since the Chinese supplier apparently forged the certificates using the name of a Chinese source (apparently in good standing) who say they did not make it. The actual source at this point is unknown, only a couple links in the supply chain.
- eschneider 2y agoYeah...that stuff is probably all going in the trash. :/
- ChrisArchitect 2y ago[dupe] Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40679599 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40679599
- ajross 2y agoThe headline is spun. The text of the article doesn't allege "counterfeit titanium", only that the paperwork chain contains (according I guess to an audit done internally at Spirit) counterfeit documents. What that says about the metal itself is unknown. It seems more likely to me to be legitimate but stolen titanium than it does to be fake material. It's not really feasible to fake something like a raw metal. Nothing else looks like titanium, nothing has the weight properties, even things like smells are different between metals that come out of different processes and tarnish in different ways. Basically by the time you got something that wouldn't be noticed by the assembly crews you'd have spent so much you might as well just have bought stolen titanium on the black market.
- nickff 2y agoIt's also possible that they're using an alloy which is not easily detected, or that the titanium is in a part which was painted or otherwise coated before receipt by Spirit
- ajross 2y ago> an alloy which is not easily detected Seems implausible. Again, Ti is way out on the edge of properties, being intermediate between steel and aluminum in weight and stiffer than either. That alloy would be a pretty novel thing, and novel metallurgy is more expensive than the hot Titanium someone stole from a bomber graveyard in Siberia.
- nickff 2y agoAccording to Wikipedia, Ti alloys are commercially available, and used in aviation. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanium_alloys https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanium_alloys
- dbuder 2y agoAsif they don't have a handheld XRF to check everything that comes off the truck, the concern is the quality.
- 2y ago
- hehdhdjehehegwv 2y agoIt’s hard not to think this is just the FAA trying to protect Boeing again by making it look like Airbus is equally bad. FAA should just be rehoused under department of commerce where the job is actually to promote and protect American business interests. At least then we can admit we have no regulatory oversight of aviation safety. Let’s be honest as a country for once.
- Jtsummers 2y agoThe false provenance was discovered by an Italian company, and then Spirit did their own investigation and found they had titanium from the same supplier with the same issue of false provenance. Spirit notified both Boeing and Airbus. Spirit produces parts for both Boeing and Airbus. This isn't about the FAA helping Boeing cover their asses, this is a real issue that impacts both Boeing and Airbus since the titanium ended up in planes from both companies.
- magicalhippo 2y agoNASA had issues with falsified tests of aluminium not long ago[1], reportedly costing them $700 million in losses[2]. Though buying from a relatively little known Chinese vendor without thorough testing on your own seems a bit reckless. [1]: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/aluminum-extrusion-manufacturer-agrees-pay-over-46-million-defrauding-customers-including https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/aluminum-extrusion-manufactur... [2]: https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-nasa-metals-fraud-20190501-story.html https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-nasa-metals-fraud-201...
- hulitu 2y agoWe need to buy cheap. Testing is expensive EBIT _must_ grow.
- BooneJS 2y agoThe FAA has their hands full investigating problems _after_ they become problems. Are airplanes in a race to the bottom or is there an opportunity to inject quality and reliability into this industry?
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> FAA has their hands full investigating problems _after_ they become problems The FAA is constantly auditing, certifying and testing airmen, airplanes and plants. They have their hands full. But it's totally incorrect to say they're an ex post facto investigations agency.
- dsr_ 2y agoRight, that's the NTSB.
- nucleardog 2y ago> The FAA is constantly auditing, certifying and testing airmen, airplanes and plants. Are they? Much of the work that would be done to inspect and certify the planes being manufactured was outsourced to the manufacturers to increase efficiency. They build their planes, inspect their planes, inspect and approve modifications and major repairs to their planes, and issue their own airworthiness certificates for their planes. For a long while, the FAA was barely even involved in rubber stamping whoever Boeing et al appointed as FAA inspectors at their plants, never mind inspecting and certifying the planes themselves—in 2016 the Transportation Department said more than 85% of the tasks associated with certification were delegated from the FAA to the manufacturer’s own inspectors. By 2018, the FAA said that Boeing was handling 96% of the certification process. There were some reforms around 2021 (737 MAX crashes were 2018 and 2019), but they were mostly focused on improving the self inspection program, not solving the fundamental problem of having companies certify their own work. > But it's totally incorrect to say they're an ex post facto investigations agency. While the inspections and certifications have been delegated by the FAA and _technically_ are still done in the name of the FAA, the reality certainly looks much more like the FAA proper is only involved _after_ significant safety issues. I really don’t think it’s quite as clear cut as you make it out to be.
- exabrial 2y ago> Spirit added that “more than 1,000 tests have been completed to confirm the mechanical and metallurgical properties of the affected material to ensure continued airworthiness.” So basically, has nothing to do with safety? Is this simply Uncle Sam is mad he couldn't take a dip of the proceeds?
- throwaway9143 2y ago"I'm selling croissants." Gives you Haggis. "Well it's all food so what's the big deal, stop regulating me."
- filleduchaos 2y agoThat doesn't describe this case at all though? It's more like you got your croissants but without a name brand or receipt.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Dylan16807 2y ago> It's more like you got your croissants but without a name brand or receipt. No, because the structural integrity might not be there. A food analogy doesn't really work well, but the effect of mixing up different titanium manufacturing processes could easily be as extreme as having a completely different type of food. But much harder to test for!
- filleduchaos 2y agoTitanium is an elemental metal. You don't "manufacture" it so much as extract it, and like any other metal it has clear, known, rather easily testable qualities. So do its alloys. The analogy didn't just not "really work well", it made zero sense. Like, in the first place a counterfeit of anything has to actually pass for the thing, and haggis most certainly does not pass as a croissant.
- kylehotchkiss 2y ago[flagged]
- refulgentis 2y agoThis has nothing to do with anything in the article, or related material, it was China. and even if it did, is oddly flippant and fallacious, it's not sourcing that's the issue, it's the fake titanium.
- jjulius 2y ago>... so what's the big deal? Counterfeit titanium may cause problems up to, and including, the plane crashing and killing everyone onboard.
- ordu 2y ago> what’s the big deal? Titanium needs to be processed carefully, to conform all specifications. Tiny impurities from atmospheric nitrogen can be fatal for a plane made from this titanium. So the supply chain must be known, certified or whatever.
- kube-system 2y agoRussia is the 3rd largest producer of titanium sponge. But titanium sponge does not come from a mine. Ilmenite and rutile come from mines, and then is industrially processed to isolate the titanium. The mining of these ores isn't primarily in Russia: https://www.statista.com/statistics/759972/mine-production-titanium-minerals-worldwide-by-country/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/759972/mine-production-t...
- Retric 2y agoCritically the material is still titanium. Some of the paperwork is counterfeit so there’s concerns around quality control etc not what it is. > Spirit is trying to determine where the titanium came from, whether it meets proper standards despite its phony documentation, and whether the parts made from the material are structurally sound enough to hold up through the projected life spans of the jets, company officials said. Spirit said it was trying to determine the most efficient way to remove and replace the affected parts if that ended up being necessary.
- _moof 2y agoUnfortunately it's not enough for it to just be titanium. A hard alpha inclusion in an ingot used to make turbine blades was the root cause of the deaths of 112 people aboard United Airlines 232.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- ThePowerOfFuet 2y agoI disagree. Poor design leading to the loss of all flight control surfaces in the event of an uncontained engine failure is what led to their deaths.
- kube-system 2y ago> The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of this accident was the inadequate consideration given to human factors limitations 1n the inspection and quality control procedures used by United Airlines' engine overhaul facility which resulted in the failure to detect a fatigue crack originating from a previously undetected metallurgical defect located in a critical area of the stage 1 fan disk that was manufactured by General Electric Aircraft Engines. https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/AAR-90-06.pdf https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/...
- 2y ago
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- lazyeye 2y agoIve often wondered whether poor quality counterfeit parts are being inserted into the supply chain as a form of industrial sabotage by competitors (including nation-states).
- K0balt 2y agoThis is a well known exploit, and is proven effective in times of conflict. I think it is safe to assume that such efforts are ongoing in many corners of the world at any given time.
- kube-system 2y agoSo well known that it's just openly published: https://www.cia.gov/static/5c875f3ec660e092cf893f60b4a288df/SimpleSabotage.pdf https://www.cia.gov/static/5c875f3ec660e092cf893f60b4a288df/... e.g.: > In tempering steel or iron, apply too much heat, so that the resulting bars and ingots are of poor quality. > Mix good parts with unusable scrap and rejected parts. > Misfile essential documents.
- richardatlarge 2y agoIf only Ivan was that clever and foresighted what trouble we’d be in
- class3shock 2y agoFor anyone immediately going to UAF 232 as an example please realize that this is titanium used in the air frame not the engine. The engine is under dramatically higher loads and is far more material fault intolerant. I'm not saying this isn't serious issue but this is not as severe a concern, otherwise the planes would be grounded already.
- crazygringo 2y agoI'm curious if anyone suspects which is the more likely justification for the forged paperwork -- -- is it most likely lower-quality or wrong-quality titanium being passed off in an effort to fraudulently save money? -- or is it probably the real deal, but stolen from a warehouse somewhere and the certificate is fraudulent merely to conceal that it was stolen?
- dehrmann 2y agoCould just be Russian titanium. They're the #3 producer and probably aren't selling much to the West, these days. Looks like some predates the war, though.
- crazygringo 2y agoOh that's interesting too -- yup a black market source is definitely another possibility. Something to avoid sanctions.