Mechanic's Mistake Trashes $244 Million Aircraft 428
Hugh Pickens writes "An accident report is finally out for the Air Force E-8C Joint Surveillance Targeting and Attack Radar System that had started refueling with a KC-135 on on March 13, 2009 when the crew heard a 'loud bang throughout the midsection of the aircraft.' Vapor and fuel started pouring out of the JSTARS from 'at least two holes in the left wing just inboard of the number two engine.' The pilot immediately brought the jet back to its base in Qatar where mechanics found the number two main fuel tank had been ruptured, 'causing extensive damage to the wing of the aircraft.' How extensive? 25 million dollars worth of extensive. What caused this potentially fatal and incredibly expensive accident to one of the United States' biggest spy planes? According to the USAF accident report, a contractor accidentally left a plug in one of the fuel tank's relief vents (PDF) during routine maintenance. 'The PDM subcontractor employed ineffective tool control measures,' reads the report. Tool control measures? 'You know, the absolutely basic practice of accounting for the exact location of every tool that is used to work on an airplane once that work is finished.' Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz just told Congress, 'there is a JSTARS platform that was damaged beyond economical repair that we will not repair.' So, if this is the one Schwartz is talking about, then one mechanic's mistake has damaged a $244 million aircraft beyond repair."
Shit Happens (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been an A&P for over 35 years and I've seen worse.
(by pilots and mechanics)
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yes - they are lucky no-one died. I've seen tool control related accidents (fod) and other problems due to maintenance issues go a lot further south than this - though the dollar total is impressive.
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oh - reading the executive summary (3rd link) it says damage was 25 million.
Re:Shit Happens (Score:5, Interesting)
The electronics package is 200 mill put it in another plane. So saying its a total loss is bs. The plane is basicly a kc-135 they have plenty of spares including whole wings.
Re:Shit Happens (Score:5, Informative)
Not quite as simple as that. You've got to rip the gear out of the dead plane as salvage and then install it in a new one. Part of the $200 mil is not the gear itself but it's installation, calibration, etc.
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But there are a lot of cheap, pre-owned and calibrated spares out there now. I'm going to start checking my local surplus store frequently now.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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When I was in the Air Force they cannibalized eqipment all the time. Planes, trucks, flightline generators and other equipment. You have two grounded planes because they're waiting for parts, they simply took the good part from one plane and installed it on the other. When the parts came the second one was again in service.
The installation, calibration, etc. is already paid for; the mechanics all get paid whether they have planes to fix or not.
Re: (Score:3)
As with so many repairs, it's not the parts cost, it's the labor.
And like your Geo Metro, do you really trust that head gasket repair? Really?
But that's not the issue... (Score:3)
The issue is that REPLACEMENT cost is not the same thing as VALUE.
Even if the thing cost $224 million new, or costs $224 million to replace, that doesn't mean that the one that broke is worth $224 million.
The options are:
- Buy a new one for $224 million
- Repair this one for $25 million
- Scrap this one and get along with one less.
If you're in a situation where you now have 29 working models of them but you only use 15 at a time, paying $25 million to get back up to 30 of them doesn't make any sense.
Especiall
Re:Shit Happens (Score:5, Insightful)
Aircraft aren't cars. The moment you start treating them the same is the moment you sign your own death warrant.
Reading carefully in the article, the Air Force states that it is beyond economical repair, which usually means that the hours on the airframe are probably beyond some limit for stress or flight hours and to make such a huge repairs near the spar, which is the huge chunk of metal that keeps the wings on, would most likely require a huge program of testing, inspection, and re-certification.
Since the Air Force has dozens of spares of this particular airframe, it is more economical to pull a newer one out of storage and move all the stuff that makes a JSTAR a JSTAR to a new plane.
Re:Shit Happens (Score:5, Funny)
Tell me about it. Sling-shot launching that Reliant Robin off an aircraft carrier damn nearly killed me!
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Oh, well there's your problem. The Robin isn't fit for carrier duty because that front wheel has to take all the stress. I would have done it in a Kitten, or at least a Supervan.
Re:Sh*t Happens (Score:5, Informative)
Since the Air Force has dozens of spares of this particular airframe, it is more economical to pull a newer one out of storage and move all the stuff that makes a JSTAR a JSTAR to a new plane.
JSTARS is not built on the C-135 airframe, exactly, but they share a common ancestor. JSTARS aircraft were built on a number of different commercially available used Boeing 707 variants. Essentially, each one was a custom installation. Air Mobility Command could not spare any viable KC-135 airframes for JSTARS, as they needed every refueler they could manage to maintain the fleet to meet unified command requirements. The other special purpose EC/RC/OC-135s were not available either, as their missions took precedence over the JSTARS effort.
The JSTARS program likely will not receive adequate funds to purchase another airframe and integrate the equipment. It's more likely that the JSTARS equipment and viable airframe parts form this aircraft will be salvaged for spares to extend the lives of the remaining JSTARS aircraft. Other platforms are more likely to be funded to absorb portions of the JSTARS capability. This decision will be driven by high and growing supportability costs for JSTARS.
Re:I'm surprised no-one else has pointed this out. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Shit Happens (Score:5, Interesting)
Just for a rule of thumb guideline - in the Navy, we never threw anything away without the Captain's permission. Something broke, the responsible parties looked at it, calculated what it would cost to repair, then reported to the Old Man. If the repair cost was greater than 60% of a new replacement, then it was deep-sixed. Otherwise, we repaired.
And, labor didn't factor into the calculations. With 350 men aboard who weren't going anywhere without the Captain's permission, the cost of labor didn't merit any consideration.
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If your twenty thousand dollar car gets two thousand worth of repairs, then conks out on the freeway in the middle of rush hour the next day, chances are that you'll pull over to the side of the road or at worst, piss off a bunch of people till the tow truck arrives.
If your $244 million dollar aircraft conks out the next day while you're at altitude, chances are, everyone aboard is going to die. If you're luck, you're over an unpopulated area and there aren't additional casualties.
Aircraft are not cars. The
Re:Shit Happens (Score:5, Insightful)
The airframe is a 40 year old ex-airline 707 with about ten zillion hours on it. A better analogy would be that it's like a $900 car with an $20k Oracle server in the trunk, and frame damage that would cost $2k to fix.
Re:Shit Happens (Score:5, Funny)
Except if it's an Oracle server, I'd dump it in the drainage ditch on the side of the road in an instant.
"No, sir, I don't know how it got into the ditch. Must have jumped."
Re:Shit Happens (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been an A&P for over 35 years and I've seen worse.
(by pilots and mechanics)
In Chuck Yeager's biography he talked about an assembly mechanic who was installing a bolt the wrong way, even though his instructions said the right way to do it. Resulted in numerous fighter plane crashes and almost killed Yeager when he was test flying one of the planes to see what was causing the crashes.
Re:Shit Happens (Score:5, Informative)
I remember reading that as i have repeated the story many times. The women on the assembly line could not grasp why you would stick a bolt in upside down. Always being taught to put it in facing down. So if the nut ever came loose the bolt would not come out. Even though as you said the instructions said to put it in upside down.
The reason being the head of the bolt was shorter and would not interfere with a control cable.
Re:Shit Happens (Score:5, Informative)
She knows clearance issues are why you install a shorter bolt Again, engineering design failed, miserably, so a way to blame the peon.
If you insist on putting the brake pedal on the right foot and accelerator on the left, it doesn't matter how loudly you blame the driver, its still a design failure.
This specific incident was hashed out in one of those freshman "intro to engineering ethics" classes I had to take a long time ago. Still remember it. It was a huge design failure, although you could claim it was also a huge management and PR success to put all the blame on some poor chick. Was used as an object lesson for how management picks the winner and loser, sometimes engineering gets it, sometimes operations/factory floor gets it, and part of being an engineer is "toughening up" that you're going to be involved in corporate BS like that, so get used to thinking about it.
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I'd say she shares some blame, by making a design decision at assembly time rather than bring the matter to the attention of her supervisor.
But yeah, bad design. If bolt orientation is so critical, you need to make the design idiot (or self-declared assembly expert) proof. I suspect "shorter bolt" wouldn't have worked - and in any event, having one bolt shorter than the others might be asking for trouble as well. But even something as simple as stamping or stenciling "bolt head down!" might have averted the
Re:Shit Happens (Score:5, Interesting)
Or if you're going to intentionally violate international standards of assembly, management needs to hire a QA/QC guy who's sole job is to make sure things are put together the wrong way. Unless of course he failed in this case, but he was someone important's son, so he can't be blamed...
There's always a way to design something the "right" way. If clearances are that tight, g-loading of the frame would have screwed it up eventually, or a tiny piece of shrapnel could take down a plane... A "combat" style repair during an emergency on a distant island could cause the loss of a plane, this isn't just a manufacturing problem.
This incident was an hour long seminar in class and at the end of class, there's no way around it, it was an engineering failure but some lowly peon took the hit, with a sub-text esoteric or whatever meaning that even when engineering "wins" in a corporate BS scenario, everyone else really "loses".
We came up with all manner of solutions like "shorter bolts everywhere not just one shorter bolt", "rivets not bolts", "reroute the cable". One unpopular one was "well, in wartime, you're gonna take losses, just deal with it".
The funniest, yet best human factors solution, which won the award for the best solution, was to work with human nature, not against it, and make the build fixture upside down. So the plant workers install the bolts right side up, from their perspective. Don't even tell the bolt installer plant workers that they're working upside down. I wish I could say that was my bright idea, but mine was a crappy solution involving spray painting bolt heads and spray painting the holes on the bolt side using a fixture, which got shot down, something about F-ing up corrosion control chromate primer or whatever.
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Me thinks your professor was an idiot.
The engineering design failed in the opinion of the professor. Yet, there was documentation saying HOW to install something that wasn't followed?
Further - somewhere someone had figured out there was a problem in this area and had written corrective procedures to avoid the problem. That of and by itself can be considered an appropriate engineering response to a problem! Don't forget - engineering is the application of science to real world problems while optimizing the
Re:Shit Happens (Score:5, Insightful)
No the professor was right.
There is a benefit to putting in the bolts the way the worker was taught to do it. It is also the standard way.
And the class came up with a number of solutions that would have been better than the upside down bolt.
You should always make assembly errors as unlikely as possible. Having a design that will fail if a single bolt is installed in that standard way vs a special procedure is just asking for trouble. Doing when other solutions are available is a fail.
Re:Shit Happens (Score:4, Insightful)
This is true *but*:
There is a hard rule in aircraft assembly that the bolt be placed head up nut down. This is to protect the plane if/when a nut falls off, gravity will still hold the bolt in place, hopefully long enough to land, or at least to eject.
This is not an optional rule, and assembly workers have it drilled into them at their new hire instruction, and every annual refresher, and whenever someone sees a mistake in QA, and just because someone thought now would be a good time to bring it up again.
It is "how it's done". <- full stop
Now, in this particular case, a dumbass engineer decided to have the bolt installed in contravention of this hard rule. He chose this because in the other orientation there was an issue with control cables, and for whatever reason the following options were not viable: move the bolt hole, use a shorter bolt, re-route the control cable.
The worker put the bolt in the way that she is "supposed to always" install bolts. Naturally this was not the right way for this bolt, and she is not blameless, but she is also not to be blamed for the entirety of the issue. She should have called her supervisor over and complained that the design conflicts with her training. Then put the bolt in upside down when her supervisor tells her to "just do it, will ya".
I still refuse to hold her as the sole cause of the issue. I've had people where I work refuse to do something against the "always do it this way" kind of rules and a design calls out something against that. 9/10 times we kick back the design as invalid. 1/10 we end up doing it, but only after everyone on the team has been trained that this one widget goes in wrong, and why. It prevents the "I know better" issues with people.
To sum up: Just because you don't pay them to think does not mean they will not think. Better to explain to them why things are done wrong in a particular case, then they will understand that it is not a stupid mistake that needs correcting, but rather a design tradeoff that had to be made.
-nB
Re:Shit Happens (Score:4, Insightful)
It was not designed that way,
It was designed to bleed off excess pressure. The plane tried to do just that. Only some fuckwad left it plugged.
Let me come over to your house and install nails in your fuse fuse box and then tell you how badly designed your electrical system was that a simple short in an electronic device burned down your house.
It seems to me that since you put no thought into this that "blaming the bigger guy" is your thing.
Good luck with that.
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It was designed to bleed off excess pressure. The plane tried to do just that. Only some fuckwad left it plugged.
Understood and agreed.
But in light of the existence of fuckwads in the maintenance pipeline, it seems like designing the fuel tank to explode in the least-destructive way might be prudent.
That said, the plane didn't crash, so perhaps this is exactly what happened.
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An atmospheric vent is not the same as a burst disc. The fuel tank is vented to the atmosphere to prevent rupturing the tank due to internal vacuum as the contents get pumped out to the engines during flight, or internal pressure changes as the plane changes altitude.
Yes, under normal circumstances the tank would never be able to be pressurized above ambient because of the vents. But a burst disc as a backup safety device would have prevented such extensive damage to the tank and wing superstructure in the
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I don't think it was a communications failure on the engineer's part. She read the drawing fine, but made her own design change right then and there. If there was a communications failure, it was in her not asking her supervisor about the drawing that troubled her so much that she needed to ignore it.
The engineer should have made it difficult or impossible to assemble wrong if the clearances were such an important aspect of the design.
Re:Shit Happens (Score:4, Funny)
If you insist on putting the brake pedal on the right foot and accelerator on the left, it doesn't matter how loudly you blame the driver, its still a design failure.
They should take the Apple route and put both functions in one pedal. Simply Genius! (tm)
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Indeed, when I was in the USAF I spent the 1st 3 years on the flightline, and there was a lot of accidental damage. One poor fellow backed a C5-A into a hangar and did $50 million in damage. He was sweating bullets for a week until the wing walker got the blame. They grounded the fleet when one of the giant buckets they serviced the tails fell over in another base and killed two mechanics. I saw quite a few land without landing gear on a foam runway, and at least one had an engine fall off. I also saw a C-1
Re:Shit Happens (Score:4, Interesting)
The wing walker is a ground crew member for an aircraft that monitors the position of the aircraft's wings as you are towing it in or out of a hangar or around other aircraft. Their job is to walk just beside where the end of the wing would be and alert the tow tractor driver if the plane is about to hit something. Of course, the wings aren't the only part of the plane that can hit stuff, so wing walkers are supposed to keep an eye on the whole thing.
A C-5-A is almost 250 feet long with a wing span around 220 feet. That's a lot of aircraft to watch.
Government Contractors (Score:5, Funny)
Government contractors. Saving you money like they have never saved it before.
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In the real world, a contractor damages $244,000,000.00 of someone's shit, the contractor is paying $244,000,000.00 plus loss of use costs until replacement.
In the government run world, everyone will have a laugh and the taxpayers will pick up the tab.
Re:Government Contractors (Score:5, Insightful)
In the real world, faced with $244,000,000 in lawsuits, the contractor folds up and declares bankruptcy.
Then everyone will have a laugh and the taxpayers will pick up the tab.
Re:Government Contractors (Score:4, Insightful)
In the real world, whatever happens, everyone will pay for this. What do you think happens if that firm is properly insured? The insurance company pays and will increase rates for everyone, not just that firm that made the mistake (you can't do stats on a single mistake anyway, and the insurance firm needs to get that money from somewhere if they are to remain as profitable).
So everyone pays more insurance, this means the companies who pay more insurance have more costs and increase their rates etc. This is not something insulated. Ditto for bankruptcies, not everyone pays as much everyone pays for it in the end.
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I feel better now (Score:5, Funny)
The most I ever cost my employer for a screw up is about $1.1 million.
RFID (Score:5, Interesting)
Sounds like a great case for RFID inventory control ; tag every tool, log them out of the toolbox with a loop mounted on the side, log them back in again when you return them.
The article linked mentions this on the second page ; I don't see why you should be limited to the 3M solution though (except maybe they'll bribe someone to make it a regulatory necessity). You can get nearly 2,000 tags for about $100, so it's not like it would be expensive.
Re:RFID (Score:4, Insightful)
"You can get nearly 2,000 tags for about $100"
You or I could, but the essential middlemen selling the same stuff to the government would add at least three zeros to the end of that figure
Re:RFID (Score:5, Insightful)
The government is big on COTS hardware/software, and only turn to contractors for specialized circumstances. Those extra zeros come from the unusual design requirements and low volume orders.
Take the x thousand dollar hammer example. On the surface, that seems absurd, since one can buy a hammer for less than 10$. But when the hammer is going into space and is made of a difficult to machine titanium alloy (tool steel shatters at cold temperatures), is egonomic even through spacesuit gloves, is lightened without reducing mechanical efficiency (makes sense at an estimated 1000$/pound/launch), and only 10 are made (despite flat machining costs), that X or XX thousand dollar price tag seems very affordable.
The same thing happens in other areas. I work on submarines and some components use joysticks. Sure, commercial joysticks can be obtained for under 100$, but a waterproofed, pov only motion, high durability (sailors treat equipment like crap, and failure is not an option) piece of clockwork machinery that maybe 50 will be made, you are looking at just shy of XX thousand per.
Re: (Score:3)
Seems overly complex. Why not just have the toolbox be able to detect what tools are contained within? Not even bother with the side loop. It could then have a nice little display of how many (and even what) tools are not inside.
Even cheaper (Score:3)
Simply weight the toolbox on the way out and again on the way back in.
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That doesn't tell you what tool(s) is/are missing, only that the set is incomplete.
Re:Even cheaper (Score:5, Insightful)
It would have prevented this disaster...
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Wouldn't work. Consumables. Safety wire, cotter pins, packing material. Even small, any of those is enough to cause a major problem. And far too small to be noticed when weighing a 75lb toolbox.
The way it is normally done is by foam cutout for each tool. A quick look can tell you if something is not in place. Of course, you have to have the brainpower to actually look when you are leaving the area.
(anon to not screw up previous mods)
Re: (Score:2)
Put the consumables in a separate box.
However, the issue of WHAT is missing, as mentioned in the other thread, might be critical.
Also, grease will get on/off tools, and I think that could make enough of a difference if there are any particularly light tools.
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That is one method of detecting what tools are contained within. The toolbox has to have some method of determining what tools it contains and a tag on each tool and a single reader on the toolbox is about as simple as it can get.
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I was suggesting the whole box be a reader, as having the extra activity of swiping the tool through a loop may be omitted in a rush.
It would be best if no extra activity were needed to detect which tools are in the box - which means, there is either (a) no way to access the tools except through the "loop", or (b) the toolbox can do a live inventory of it's contents at any time.
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Aerospace has much better QA procedures than heart surgeons. Many surgeons don't even use basic checklists despite being proven successful at reducing errors, because they are the well-paid masters and don't what any peon correcting them.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/01/14/us-surgical-checklists-idUSTRE70D33920110114 [reuters.com]
When the malpractice insurers start enforcing this with detective-techniques and legal subpoenas it will change.
Re:RFID (Score:4, Informative)
In the 70s, our tool kit was a canvas bag. We had to check it before we went to the flight line and both of us signed off that it was complete. Then before we LEFT the flight line, we counted again and signed off that it was complete. If the bird was scheduled to fly before we could get back to the tool crib, the crew chief also counted and signed off. Then we returned to the shop, checked the bag in and it was counted again before we could sign off on the work.
If the tool crib did not get all the tools back, the bird would held until we found the tool or the bird was inspected inside and out. For 2 years I was there, we never lost a tool, and I never heard of anyone losing a tool from any other shop. In fact, my usual task was to lock a fixture, and I had the speed wrench on a wrist leash. Fortunately I never worked on a bird with engines running, which was a whole different protocol.
It is not that hard to count. From the description of this process, I'm disappointed that the shop didn't have a tool board that would show an empty spot, nor any process to question a missing tool. In our shop back then, a missing tool for ANY reason would have been grounds for a complete inspection, evaluation, and questioning. I wasn't allowed to carry tools into the shop, even that teeny screwdriver we used for rotary switches. Absolute control within the shop system.
Leaving something on equipment was just inexcusable. Shocking really.
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so it's not like it would be expensive
This is the government. It WILL be expensive.
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I'm betting the could do it for less than $25 miliion.
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Sounds like a great case for RFID inventory control ; tag every tool, log them out of the toolbox with a loop mounted on the side, log them back in again when you return them.
Who fills out the ISO9000 report paperwork documenting the RFID hasn't fallen off the tool and remains in the bottom of the toolbox? You could generate an exception report of tools that were supposed to be used but haven't been used in "X" months, but then someone needs to review that and follow up and most importantly, document it and get a sign off from their boss.
If the RFID falls off a $125000 radar spectrum analyzer, does that make it non-compliant and eligible to be sold to techs buddy for $50 govt s
I expected it was a problem with ball bearings (Score:2)
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Only 244 million? (Score:2, Insightful)
244 million? Isn't that minuscule? CEOs regularly crash the stock market. But at least they take responsibility! Like... becoming CEO somewhere else?
I'm not really understanding... (Score:5, Interesting)
A few points occur to me:
1_ ...how $25 million in repairs is "beyond economical repair" on a $240 million plane? If I have a $20,000 car that's in an accident, it's not uncommon to have $2000 in repairs...that's hardly "totalled".
2. Now, looking at the pictures, that's pretty serious...but then it's more than $25 million in damage.
3. the E8 is a converted 707...didn't they stop building those in the 1970s? If this is a 30 year old airframe (at best) then either that damage is $25 million or the plane is worth less than $240 million today.
4. Finally, as I understand it this damage was done by a subcontractor. When I use subcontractors, they have liability insurance to cover the systems they're working on, plus potential liabilities. Doesn't the US government require AT LEAST such protections when farming out work to contractors?
By the way, I'd like to further remind the Air Force that this is a COMBAT aircraft. Granted, it's not supposed to be in dogfights or shot at, but this is a piece of military equipment, maintained in difficult conditions/circumstances by relatively inexperienced crew (for example an aircraft carrier's crew largely is swapped out about every 18-36 months). That seems incompatible with its evident fragility.
Re:I'm not really understanding... (Score:5, Insightful)
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It probably basically totalled the airframe. At that point it's cheaper to take the payload out- but don't think pulling the payload and putting it into a new 707 is going to be cheap. It's probably going to cost something on the order of a third to half of the 25 mil at least to do it and then recertify the new plane for service.
Re:I'm not really understanding... (Score:4, Insightful)
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3. the E8 is a converted 707...didn't they stop building those in the 1970s? If this is a 30 year old airframe (at best) then either that damage is $25 million or the plane is worth less than $240 million today.
They're probably comparing apples and oranges here, the new cost was $244 million but the planes have been in service of some form since 1991, the accident was in 2009. Secondly, that probably includes a lot of R&D costs so a $25 million dollar could be a much larger part of the production cost. Third, maybe the military's needs have changed or other types of craft do better, it might make sense to operate but not necessarily to spend that much to keep it in service.
Finally, as I understand it this damage was done by a subcontractor. When I use subcontractors, they have liability insurance to cover the systems they're working on, plus potential liabilities. Doesn't the US government require AT LEAST such protections when farming out work to contractors?
They certainly could, but nothing com
If you read the actual congressional testimony... (Score:4, Informative)
If you read the actual congressional testimony, you would have seen that Schwartz didn't say that it wasn't repairable for ~$25M, which is 10% of the cost of the whole system, he bemoaned his budget constraints, and said they wouldn't repair it as an example answer to the question "Is there any sacrifice you're seeing in ISR...?". Also note that they're only not repairing *the platform*.
The title of the press release from the Public Affairs office more or less says it all: "Air Force Strategic Choices and Budget Priorities Brief at the Pentagon".
-- Terry
I don't get it. (Score:4, Funny)
Warplane can't handle a hole? (Score:2)
So this is a plane that might get, you know, shot at? In a war or something? And it can't handle two little holes, or be repaired? Sounds like a design flaw to me.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Warplane can't handle a hole? (Score:5, Informative)
None of the AWACS/JSTARS/etc planes are "made to be shot at". They're civilian airframes stuffed to the gills with super-secret electronics. They rely on fighters and ECM to stay up; they don't do any fighting themselves. Heck, they're unarmed.
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Yes, and that's probably why the airplane was able to land after the damage suffered.
It doesn't mean that after getting shot you don't have to repair the equipment.
typically misleading (Score:5, Informative)
Look on the bright side (Score:2)
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Surgical nurses typically handle the "tool inventory" on surgery ; all the operating theatres I've worked in have had excellent procedures, but you still hear stories about things being left behind in the patient...
Re:Look on the bright side (Score:5, Interesting)
And he reports the surgeons are mostly resistant to the idea.
Oh well (Score:5, Funny)
If he were a banker he'd get a bonus ?
Epic? (Score:2)
FUBAR (Score:2)
To channel Adam Savage for a moment ... (Score:2)
Well, there's your problem.
This is nothing. I have heard worse. (Score:3, Funny)
Forgotten Lesson of WWII (Score:5, Interesting)
World War II, if you watch enough of the History Channel, boiled down to quantity winning over quality. Our Sherman Tanks, for example, were utter crap compared to the Panzer and Tiger tanks. But, the USA was able to build a lot of them and they were simple and cheap. The Panzer and Tiger, however, were built in small numbers because they were complex machines.
Germany was 10 years ahead of the USA technologically. But, Germany wasn't able to build to the quantity needed to fight an industrial giant like the USA, especially while we were bombing their industrial capacity to zero (and losing 60% of our aircraft to do it).
It is sad that USA is now following Germany's example. We are building overly complex, hugely expensive equipment that cannot be easily field serviced, and building them in limited numbers because we cannot afford them in great quantity.
Eventually, even though we are 10 years ahead of every opponent technologically, someone will be able to over-run us in a drawn out war simply by having great numbers of simpler, cheaper equipment, and a lot of it.
And I think we all know who's the industrial giant now, that can produce great quantities of material quickly and cheaply.....
Re:Forgotten Lesson of WWII (Score:5, Insightful)
A often over looked factor is attrition in WWII. Made up numbers:
Lets say the US had zero elite level tankers but millions of noobs and we didn't start the land war until, well, frankly pretty much d-day 1944. Solution, make millions of noob-tanks. We didn't have any elite combat veteran tankers anyway to make use of elite level tanks.
Lets say the Germans had a hundred thousand elite combat vet tankers, but a quarter of them die in combat every year starting in 1939, so by 1945 you've got 12 year olds with hunting rifles "defending" Berlin at the last stand. Solution, make tens of thousands of elite-tanks and hope each elite-tank blows up more than 10 noob-tanks. Eventually you end up with dudes from the assembly line trying to be tankers, that didn't work out so well.
They darn near won, despite the attrition, so I wouldn't harsh their strategy too much.
Pet Peeve: it's not a "Spy Plane" (Score:3)
Forgive the rant, but:
It is not a "spy" plane, it is a "surveillance" plane. Ever since the 2001 Hainan Island incident this mistake has really irked me. The Chinese used it as a rhetorical club to beat us with when GWB chickened out and let them chop up our plane and imprison our crew.
A "spy" plane would be one that is designed/intended to escape detection and/or interception while conducting surveillance in places it has no right to be (such as the U2 and SR-71 or the Global Hawk). During the cold war, the Soviet Union consistently protested our overflights of their territory with the U2 and SR71, and sought (and once succeeded) to shoot them down, as was their right. Those were "spy" planes, and Francis Gary Powers was, technically, a "spy."
The JSTARS E-8 and the Hainan EP-3E are both military versions of the Boeing 707 -- they aren't designed to hide from or evade anyone trying to see and/or catch them. They are big obvious platforms that fly in neutral territory (or over an actively declared battle zone when we have air dominance) and provide surveillance and other capability. They aren't hiding or trying to deceive anyone.
mechanic only the symptom (Score:3)
Why would a plane with so much advanced electronics on board not have a check system or pre-flight checklist item to look for such an installed plug. Supposed a swarm of bees had built a nest in there and blocked it instead of the mechanic's error?
If something as simple as a plugged vent can cause complete and catastrophic damage to the craft then there needs to be pre/in flight monitoring of that system. Seems a simple pressure gauge in the tank would have prevented this situation from becoming life threatening.
Re:Althourhg it was a private contractor (Score:4, Funny)
you forgot "And suggest private industry could do better"
Re:Althourhg it was a private contractor (Score:4, Informative)
Of course they do. My problem is all the suggestions that Private industry does significantly better, ESPECIALLY when funded by the government. I think that's when we see the worst of the waste, private industry on the government's payroll.
Re: (Score:3)
Which reminds me (sadly) of Armageddon, the movie.
When they're about to launch and Rockhound (Steve Buscemi) says "You know we're sitting on four million pounds of fuel, one nuclear weapon and a thing that has 270,000 moving parts built by the lowest bidder. Makes you feel good, doesn't it?"
Re:Althourhg it was a private contractor (Score:4, Interesting)
Ben Rich (head of Lockhead in the 90's) said in his book that one time he was at the GE engine plant. One of the guys was pointed at two jet engines. He said they were the exact same engine. The only difference was one was for the Air Force and had 200 extra inspectors look at it and cost twice as much for that reason. Next time you want to blame the contractors for how much things cost take into consideration all the extra regs and paperwork they are required to do. Another fav of his is how they go crazy labeling things secret or top secret. That doubles the paperwork and makes all their work that much more difficult.
He compared the overall cost of a new plane for the air force to the overall cost of the new model for the Mustang. The amounts were fairly close. Ford gets to spread the cost over thousands of cars. The manufacturer of a planes gets to spread the cost over a few hundred planes.
Re: (Score:3)
Are you serious?
The engines on a medium/large private jet can run you about a million each, and that's for a unit that GE mass-produces for civilian use. That you're saying a gas turbine is elegantly simple means that you've never ever ever worked on one. Ever.
Ever.
The concept might be simple, but when you're got a huge shaft studded with titanium blades spinning at 10,000 RPM and then you're intentionally using all of that compressed air to cause an explosion.. well, it doesn't take a rocket surgeon to see
Re:if in doubt.. (Score:4, Informative)
blame "a contractor".
Especially when the contractor WAS negligent.
Re: (Score:2)
Remember that the airframe for this airplane (a KC-135) is basically a late 50s-early 60s design/build.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Remember that the airframe for this airplane (a KC-135) is basically a late 50s-early 60s design/build.
Whatever. Back then engineers had to be smarter because they couldn't rely on computers. The days of iron men, not heavy iron mainframes... Age is no excuse for poor design, assuming thats what you meant.
More likely, since this has not been a popular failure mode over the past half century, the cost of designing it out probably exceeds the cost of just eating an airframe every century or two.
Re:Utter nonsense (Score:4, Insightful)
It is ass-covering of the lowest order to blame a lowly mechanic for what is obviously a design flaw. A simple sensor to monitor the presence of a plug
Terrible design mistake because now someone needs to maintain, replace, test, and probably F-up that sensor. Also its heavy. The better design involves multiple permanently installed frangible disks on extra vent piping.
See how hard design is? Finding incompetence is always easier than designing around it. First guess is usually wrong. That's probably what happened to the A+P mechanic, too.
Re: (Score:3)
Exactly.
Also, it's wrong to claim that if it is a design flaw then the mechanic isn't at fault. There is a standard procedure for maintenance and tool handling and the PDM contractor failed to follow it. If you read the accident report, you will see the disclaimer that it can't be used as evidence in a civil or criminal proceeding. The mopst likely consequence of this incident is that it will be written into the prime contractor's performace report and will thus affect future contract bids (contrary to popu
Re: (Score:2)
what if it had been a bullet instead of a mistake?
LOL this model of vehicle is the ultimate REMF machine. If it eats a bullet we've already lost our entire military and been completely and totally utterly overrun. Like that plane contains the last living airmen in the entire USAF.
Also from an engineering perspective its very easy to design something to take a bullet from the outside, but an overpressure failure from the inside? That is uneconomical to design for.
Re: (Score:2)
This isn't a combat "warplane". This is a SIGINT/Surveillance/etc. plane and was simply a commercial airframe that was stuffed to the gills with "spy gear". Simply put, any airframe of this nature would need to be pretty much scrapped when this incident happened because you've basically lost the wing. Has nothing to do with "complexity". Most of the gear's actually surprisingly agile and quickly demilled at the same time- it's just things like JSTARS isn't by their very nature.
Re: (Score:3)
Here is what bothers me: if you're black and you make a mistake it's because you're black.
This is not fair both to the black person because he can make mistakes like any other (white) person, and to black people because they are suddenly set to impossibly high standards.
Re:Affirmative Action (Score:4, Insightful)
Any alternative is better than Affirmative Action. Giving someone a job because they belong to a minority is equivalent to not giving someone a job because they aren't in the minority, which is racist/sexist.