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Mechanic's Mistake Trashes $244 Million Aircraft
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."
I've been an A&P for over 35 years and I've seen worse.
(by pilots and mechanics)
A bullet may have your name on it, but artillery is addressed to " Whom It May concern"
Government contractors. Saving you money like they have never saved it before.
you forgot "And suggest private industry could do better"
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
blame "a contractor".
"What Are They Gonna Do When Were All Using Freenet"
The most I ever cost my employer for a screw up is about $1.1 million.
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.
It's all ball bearings these days.
244 million? Isn't that minuscule? CEOs regularly crash the stock market. But at least they take responsibility! Like... becoming CEO somewhere else?
Que the contractor vs. organic AF maintenance argument. And "blame the contractor" is always a fun game.
Government failed to supervise lowest-bidder contractors. Of course I blame the government.
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.
-Styopa
$25 million? It's not as if they had to repair the toilets or anything . . .
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.
You lost an airframe. A significant fraction of that $244 million is payload and equipment that will be recovered and used as "spare parts" to maintain other JSTARS aircraft. The airframe is all that was lost. The airframe is a commercial 707 derivative. It's not an $244 million aircraft, it's a tricked out $5 million dollar aircraft. The issue, now, is replacing the system -- which means assembling another JSTARS. Given typical government contracting practices that will cost another $325 million (inflation adjusted from initial cost of $244 million in 1998).
Yea, the government doesn't make $244 million mistakes. Just private industry. Better let the government take this over so nothing like this happens again.
At least he chose to study engineering and not medicine.
This isn't a loss at all. This is a justification for more spending. At the top of the power pyramid, it doesn't matter where the money comes from, or even whether you "succeed" or "fail". What matters is that the money passes through your hands, giving you a chance to exploit that cash flow for personal gain.
Reminds me of another tool control issue that cost the AF a KC135 at Tinker AFB a few years ago.
Basic gist was he used a homemade pressure gauge to test the integrity of the airframe post depot maintenance. The pressure relief valves had be sealed up during PDM and never reactivated. The technicians gauge had no peg so he failed to notice when the needle began its second trip.
Needless to say the effects where impressive. Total write-off of the aircraft.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpGF3dVdj14
But government supervision is regulation, which is anti-jobs!
If he were a banker he'd get a bonus ?
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
Simply weight the toolbox on the way out and again on the way back in.
This is for what the 'epic' in 'epic fail' was invented.
Acronym brought to life.
No. That's the first thing you thought.
I'm attacking Affirmative Action, which is the truly racist policy.
I'm sure there are many excellent African aircraft mechanics. The problem is that Affirmative Action and diversity policies can overlook a persons lack of skill and credentials merely to meet some quota.
At some point it would seem the complexity of our military hardware is a hindrance more than a help. what if it had been a bullet instead of a mistake? the plane is operable but takes $25 million in repairs and likely weeks (months?) to do so. or what if you need to maintain these at less then optimal conditions. your mechanics are slammed and it needs to get back in the air. should such a small thing permanently ground your aircraft?
things like this make me think that if we were in a real prolonged WW3 type theater that our overly sophisticated military would begin to fail under pressures of less than optimal conditions.
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 in order to save a 244 million dollar craft is not too much to expect from the maker. Someone high should be fired, but they will throw the poor mechanic under the bus and feel competent and effective.
E Proelio Veritas.
And what are the costs for the Generals's mistakes?
Private Enterprise: Fucking Up for Profit (TM)
You're either sarcastic, or blind.
Some notes worth mentioning:
The plug that was left in the aircraft occured when the plane was in Depot-level maintenance. 99% of depot level work is performed by civilians. As a matter of fact, no military service members perform any depot level maintenance.
At best there may be a few officers or senior enlisted working at the factory to serve as liasons or QA type billets. They're few and far between.
It's not to say that the contractors shouldn't be held accountable, especially consider how long it takes for the depot guys to do anything. In my experiance (active duty military aviation at the o-level (squadron level)) It takes depot to 2 days (about 6 ten-hour shifts with overlap) to remove and replace a rotary powerplant, when it would take one my shops only one shift from start to finish.
These contractors USED to be active duty military. They USED to have a work ethic. But something happens when you go civilian contractor....
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.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
It is anti-jobs only when the price matters. It matters in the private sector, but government can create 2 controller jobs for every hammer wielding peon and simply pay for that with even more taxpayer money.
In the end it is destructive either way - private sector will be stuck with the bill in form of higher taxes (and it costs jobs in the long run).
I blame the government. It costs too much to repair because it costs a million dollars just to look out the window at the goddamned thing and say, "Yep, that is going to cost, uh, a hundred million to fix."
Well, there's your problem.
I am officially gone from
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.
Sounds to me like a great case for the military NOT subcontracting out every single task to some private company which they have little, if any, control over.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Just guessing the contract for the aircraft maintenance was won by the lowest bidder....you get what you pay for.
Ok, but you could have done a better job at clarifying that in your original post, because I've seen that wording before and it means blame darky
jstars is more of a command and control or forward air controller (it's mostly ground scanning and targeting, not spying?)
To someone who used to be in military aviation, this is kind of a non-story. It is a rare and undesirable incident but hardly unheard of, except that tool control is very good in military aviation now. You have the mechanics, then you have the Quality Control checkers, then eventually you have the aircrew doing their pre-flight inspection. Most of the time mistakes get caught along the way, very occasionally they don't. Luckily in this case no one got hurt and hopefully the contractor reimburses the government for some of the loss (not $244 million, as other posters have pointed out). It is human error, same as what causes most aircraft accidents in the air and on the ground. When you work with $244 million equipment which flies through the air you will suffer losses sometimes. It's like owning a $100,000 car -- if you drive it on the street you are taking the chance of wrecking it. And $244 M doesn't sound like all that much -- about the same as a new Boeing 777 according to the Boeing price list (http://www.boeing.com/commercial/prices/).
If a forgotten scissor can happen in cardiology it can happen everywhere
Jehovah be praised, Oracle was not selected
If I remember Srimati teacher correctly, apparently a whole kingdom was lost because some cobbler missed nailing one nail in the shoe of one horse. I, along with rest of the class, had actually memorized the entire report of the investigation committee. We delivered the report to an assembly of interested parties ( Mohan master accompanied us on the xylaphone) on the annual day of the Mahatma Gandhi Elementary. From the standing ovation we got, I assume our report was spot on and was accepted with great appreciation.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Moved in to a new house. Week later had sewage backup in the bathtubs. Private industry subcontractor to a private industry contractor had left waste water line blocking test plugs in the line after it was pressure tested for the government inspector. What a mess once the plugs were pulled.
So stuff happens and everybody can do it.
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.....
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
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.
Is he strong? Listen bud, He's got radioactive blood.
Well, it sure wasn't me .
I just get to pay for it.
And for bonuses for the incompetents that created the mess.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
How about doing what every handyman does in his garage: hanging the tools on a board and tracing an outline of all of them.
My problem is all the suggestions that Private industry does significantly better, ESPECIALLY when funded by the government.
Maybe with things like "no bid" contracts, but in general buying things on competitive bids seems pretty efficient. The exception is when corruption enters the scene, or when the item is big enough (space shuttle, military contracts, etc) that legislators start getting involved and putting BS restrictions on the contract.
The main benefit is that you don't have to pay pension and healthcare for someone for the rest of their lives. That's my biggest beef with the way our government hires people - their salary is lower but they make up for it by going into debt that is often hidden from the books. Do you have any idea what health care costs for former federal workers are going to cost in 30 years? I have no idea, but my kids sure will! It's just not a moral policy - we are making promises to people that we can't possibly follow up on, because we'll also be old. So we're lying. Then we burden our kids with the costs of our present-day activities.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
this contractor is basically screwed now. That said, I don't know a single contractor, company or business that's not run like this. The company that cuts the most corners gets the contract when they underbid. Sometimes that company's dumb luck launches them to success, and somethings this happens.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
My car tells me if I leave the fuel cap off, but a multi-hundred-million $ plane has nothing that can tell in advance if there is a venting problem with a fuel tank? Sorry, but WTF?! I'm with others too- I believe the costs are being blown out of proportion by the Air Force, and this aircraft is obviously impractical for "combat" conditions where it may need to be field serviced under less-than-ideal conditions. Another waste of taxpayer money.
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
"How extensive? 25 million dollars worth of extensive."
"has damaged a $244 million aircraft beyond repair."
get your damn story right, is it going to take 25 million to hose out the inside of this wing, or is this mistake going to cost us 244 million to replace? The whole situation sounds over dramatic and blown out of proportion anyway.
Sure. Sloppy, cheesy employment. Cost-cutting. Lowest-bid suppliers. Rampant graft and cronyism. A cultural pool crumbling inder the feet of education - technical education being very hard hit. Etc. and so on.
And it's all the mechanic's fault? It's really, really much more serious than that.
A $244 million plane has $25 million dollars damage. So someone decides it's better to go buy a replacement plane at $244 million instead of $25 million (to be extracted from the contractor's insurance company) to fix the damage?
Where are the Republicans when you need them? Out campaigning? Oh wait, they're on the golf course with the Northrop Grumman executives.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Turbine engines are some of the most elegantly simple combustion engines in existence so how are they so expensive to produce?
That is hilarious. Watch this. And those are the cheap ones - some need to be grown from a single crystal in a vacuum furnace... let me know when you can do that cheaply.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
How the hell are we supposed to pad our Pentagon slush fund if you guys keep calling out our shenanigans. Due to increased legislative oversight, we've been overestimating funds on other projects, and funneling the excess into our black budget. You guys really believe we're paying $700 on a toilet seat? That is old school. We've moved on to a more distributed approach. At every opportunity, we pad our estimates. Why don't you watch the Kardashians on the TV? Watch some pro football? The super bowl is almost here! Quit paying attention to our business.
Should the company of the mechanic fire him? Hell no! They just gave him $25 million worth of training!
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?"
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
You mean like the oil spill in the Gulf? I'm sure private industry had absolutely nothing to do with that...
Private industry is just better at covering things up, because in the public sector, eventually if something is hidden, someone will find it and there will be hell to pay.
Sounds like you have a great business plan there. Let us know how you do.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
The accident occurred March 13th 2009, but the news is the Air Force accident investigative board’s report on the incident, including photographs, which is only recently available.
Um, suppose there was a war and this thing dodged some SAMs and return to base with some shrapnel holes from a near miss? Would they write the whole thing off? There has been more than one time in history when a "platform" has come under fire -- the RB-47 incident, the KAL Flight 7 matter where a civilian jet was attacked under the mistaken belief that it was a Cobra Ball or a Rivet Joint, and so on. Or is the assumption that if one of these things is attacked that it ain't coming home so why bother?
I have worked both in military aviation and civilian aviation.
First, tool control. When working in a military environment, tool control is simple. Everything gets checked out after inspecting the tool / toolbox and tools to make sure they are all there and not broken. Then when the shift is over, the tools are returned and inspected. Anything left on the plane is documented. If the contractor left something in the wing that caused damage, then they are financially liable. Period.
Second, 25 million to fix that, I doubt very much. I worked on a DC-8 that had both wing ends ripped right off, from the #1 engine outboard and the #4 engine outboard. It didn't cost 25 million to fix that. I would be willing to bet that any repair station would do the job for 2.5 million and make out like bandits.
But if you really look at what the alleged cause was, why was it not caught long before this? Whenever there is depot level maintenance done on a military aircraft, there is a whole process of inspection that take place before it is accepted for active duty. The fuel system in the number 2 tank would have been used several times before this incident both in fueling and in normal burn thru the engines. A blocked vent would have cause problems long before this. I suspect there was another malfunction that caused all the fuel to be dumped into the #2 tank instead of distributed to all the tanks.
. . . these are not the tools you are looking for.
There's an old saying I remember from my aircraft maintenance days - Aircraft are designed by people with a PhD, built by people with a BS degree, and maintained by people with a GED.
"Trashing," meaning "may as well throw it away," implies totally destroying the aircraft.
This incident did damage of about 10% of the aircraft's value, making it an easy fix.
What's with all the sensationalist headlines lately?
Doesn't really apply anyways. So, the interior of the wing got screwed up when the tank popped... how does that damage the engine, exactly? It's not like someone threw a brick into it.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
About 11 years ago, I had an old car of mine serviced, and for whatever reason, the next day after getting it back I decided to pop the hood ("bonnet" for you UK'ers). There was the mechanics hammer just sitting on the air filter cover. I'm not even sure what he needed a hammer for. Unlike this story though, I lucked out and no damage occurred, except my confidence in that car shop.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
It happens with the gummint also.
I had the opportunity to work on F-4s back in the 70s as a member of the USAF. While my stuff was hung off a pylon, I did get to climb in and touch some stuff in the cockpit. One day I check the flags like I'm supposed to, climb in, sit down, and find out that one flag came out of the ejection seat. I wait for an hour while Egress fixes it. Allegedly I was the idiot for not checking, but I'm not allowed to tug on the pins to be sure they are securely fastened. The crew chief never forgave me. At least I didn't go out the roof.
Next week, another F-4 goes long on landing and takes the barrier. Brake was mis-assembled. Apparently F-4 main brakes are complicated. That mechanic made more coffee than I did...
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
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.
I do not think it means what you think it means.
The wing command would love to takes these out of service and replace them with the latest and greatest thing. As long as they're functional it's difficult to get some of the congress-allocated AF pie to do this. Accidents like this move them closer to new programs and new commands which is what these guys live for.
Consider who is repairing commercial jet liners, companies like Jet Blue have their repairs done in El Salvador, scary huh?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39383369/ns/travel/t/outsourcing-safety-airplane-repairs-move-unregulated-foreign-shops/#.TygM_aua46k
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
..someone once crashed an expensive aircraft. It was very regrettable and the survivors who were responsible for it, felt bad.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Tennessee Air National Guard totalled a C141, but at least it was on the ground when the wing ruptured.
http://www.airliners.net/photo/209303/
Never shake hands with a man you meet in a fertility clinic.
What has that got to do with this story, though? I don't think you give a damn about racism, so spare the act.
This is why we have managers. THEY are responsible setting up systems that eliminates simple human mistakes. That's why managers earn 10-fold the average workers salary. They have the responsibility. A mechanic is merely a biological robot tool in this context. The story heading should be "A bunch of managers could not manage to manage what they were paid to manage, tries to blame someone else"
Can I light a sig ?
Umm, Sorry, as an employee for a agency that is partially federal, partially state, I've seen way too many people/groups who know how to game the system for contract bids. What you end up with is highly substandard stuff that is worth significantly less than what you payed for, or "incomplete unless you fork over $X more).
And most of the time, once they've done enough to get blacklisted, the group folds the company, forms a new one, and sometimes shuffles the leadership a bit and starts all over again. Sometimes they do this mid-project. Unfortunately, the same anti-corruption laws that prevent cronyism also provide shelters and loopholes for these people.
Yeah, laws can be made to prevent this, but those who do it will continue to find loopholes because it's their moral obligation to get money from evil Uncle Sam and and show how greedy and corrupt the government is.
The government sure as hell can screw up, but I honestly don't see the private industry doing a lot better. And when it comes down to it, too many private sector organizations see the government as something to be abused and leeched off of, rather than another important organization in our economic infrastructure.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
I was the Quality Assurance Officer in the maintenance department of the largest helicopter squadron in the Marine Corps, so allow me to pass along a few notes on military aircraft maintenance procedures and the cost accounting of mishaps.
Everything in the maintenance department is done by checklists and written procedures because people make mistakes; written instructions help minimize those mistakes as long as the procedures are followed. In addition to the written instructions, there are at least two levels of QA: Collateral duty inspectors, who are more senior mechanics who check the work was done right, and Quality Assurance representatives, who are still more senior and check the work after the first inspection (they are prohibited from watching the work to ensure they look at each job with no preconceptions). Given the insanely complex maintenance that goes into these machines, this setup is a marvel of efficiency and effectiveness. (Evidenced by the low number of mishaps attributed to maintenance errors.)
RFID tool control works just great until the computer loses power. A lot of maintenance is done in very austere environments and under combat conditions. The current tool control systems are designed to work when the lights are out and the world has gone to hell in a hand basket. If your tool control idea won't survive incoming fire, it's not robust enough.
The bottom line to both of these is that taking shortcuts bypasses the system that prevents these mishaps. Follow the procedures and things will be fine 99.9% of the time.
As regards accounting, when an aircraft sustains more than $2 million in damage (used to be $1 million), it is considered a Class A mishap, which is the same classification for a mishap resulting in total loss of the airframe or the loss of life. From that point of view, $25 million is a total loss. Add in the factors of old airframe, hard to get parts, etc. and you see why this is considered a total loss. If you don't like it, blame the Congresscritters who make the laws, not the guys who live under those laws.
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 that you're not going to bang one of these babies together over the weekend in your garage.
As for the aircraft, wings can and do cost a significant amount of money. If the wing spar was damaged, then the aircraft is toast.
but I honestly don't see the private industry doing a lot better.
Agreed that they don't do a lot better when working as government contractors - but at least we aren't paying them after they are done the job like we are with federal employees. Sure you might get the same crap work - maybe slightly better, maybe slightly worse - but at the end of the day, the contractor goes away and the federal employee is on the books until they die.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
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.
I think the solution is obvious: start putting jet engines in Mustangs.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Is that what it's called in surgery too? On-topic: seems if this could be an issue maybe a pressure senor in the tank (or a strain gauge on the tank) is a good idea.
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.
I'm a lawyer with excellent karma. Something's gotta be wrong.
Complex human activities always involve errors. No matter how hard we try or how perfect the effort there will always be screwups. Perhaps there is a more basic error in allowing such bleeding edge technology being deployed in the first place. this wonderful electronic technology can probaly be made more robust, miniturized and produced at very low cost if allowed to mature before military use. Today's electronic miracle tends to be tomorrow's mundane and common product.
Big deal :)
In Sweden, the maintenance crew of a nuclear reactor (Ringhals) forgot a wrench inside the reactor. It didn't start, and when they investigated why, they found the tool.
http://www.nyteknik.se/nyheter/energi_miljo/karnkraft/article255036.ece
Except in South Africa, where Affirmative Action is there to give jobs to the majority and not give jobs to someone in a minority group. So to solve this obvious dilemma they instead call the majority group "previously disadvantaged". It's so extremely clever :)
And, why do we need $244MM aircraft, exactly...?
I don't respond to AC's.
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.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
True, but you probably dont' realize just how quickly a shop can turn racist/discriminatory without even realizing it. "Yeah, we tried a few guys from _____ and they just didn't work out, so we don't hire anyone like that anymore" which can go from a school, a town, to a race or gender and the broad brush begins. Then those guys who don't hire ________ as a matter of policy due to a few _______ not "working out" (for whatever reason of "working out") moving to other shops, keeping their internalized prejudices from previous experiences, moving into management positions, it spreads like a cancer. It feels like humans are hard-wired to EXCLUDE people, and we try to rationalize it, reason it out, but in the end, it ends up hurting a lot of folks who are perfectly fine for the job, but just because a "couple guys didn't work out" a couple decades ago....
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
Now, collect the $ from the contractor.
Xenophobia is a survival trait, it takes sentience to control it. Some are better then others at it. Its not wrong to dislike another race, it is wrong to deny that they are human and equal.
Good-bye
There is a benefit to putting in the bolts the way the worker was taught to do it. It is also the standard way.
There are no standards in aircraft design, only general guidelines. If the instructions said to install the bolt one way, the assembly workers should have been thoroughly trained to do it *exactly* that way. Creativity in assembling planes kills people.
The engineers who design a plane are working under a strict constraint to make everything as strong as needed while being as lightweight as possible. It's not their job to anticipate any convoluted reasoning an assembly line worker may have. The engineer must assume that the workers will be trained well enough to follow correctly all the procedures.
If someone cannot control his or her creativity enough to follow instructions, he or she should not be working at an assembly line.
When people must follow instructions, they should NEVER, under any circumstances, try to outguess the procedures. If they have any doubt, they should ask someone and, whenever applicable, have their observations brought to the attention of the engineers. I have been an engineer working at design tasks for over 30 years, and have received many good contributions from people who operate the systems I have designed. Constructive criticism is always welcome.
It's quite possible that an engineer may not have realized some practical detail of the design. But people who assemble equipment like aircraft on which people's lives may depend should not have the presumption to try to "improve" the design on their own initiative.
I would imaging that when the tank popped, there was an instant loss of fuel pressure causing compressor surge. Perhaps pressure loss caused a flameout instead and then fuel started pooling in the combustion section. Then, when enough pressure built up, the unburnt fuel combusted, causing turbine damage.
They probably did account for all the tools; just not all the consumables, like plugs, or in the case of satellites: rags.
Sorry.
* Carthago Delenda Est *
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.
Invenio via vel creo
Looking at the pictures, several ribs were completely busted off of the spar, as well as several bulkheads breached.
Pictures Damage10 thru Damage15 shows the bottom flange of the spar completely broken away, a testament to strengths of the bolts attached. This could also be indicative of accumulated metal fatigue from many flight hours.
Never the less, the amount of over-pressure must have been astounding.
The interesting thing is that the plane took off, presumably with this tank full, and it was re-fueled in-flight.
So the questions that come to mind are,
1) How did this not happen during ground fueling? Smaller pipes I presume
2) Why didn't the tanker's back pressure sensor shut down the flow?
Boeing has already suggested a same or lower cost solution based on the 737, which is dramatically more fuel efficient.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
So the questions that come to mind are,
1) How did this not happen during ground fueling? Smaller pipes I presume
My guess would be lower atmospheric pressure due to being a few thousand feet up while refueling in-flight.
Blaming everything on the CRA is 99% right wing propaganda and a lie.
Banks don't give out enormous bonuses to brokers for loans that they "have to give out". If that were the case, they would make it an arduous bureaucratic process which the customers have to navigate and push themselves. Banks give out enormous bonuses for loans which make them tons of money, this quarter. And that's what they did.
And the CRA doesn't in any case force subprime loans, and the worst subprime offenders were not even subject to CRA. And there was a huge bubble in commercial property lending which is not part of CRA either. And there is clear evidence 'redlining' of minority borrowers to bad (==profitable to the bank) loan terms when the borrowers could have qualified for better, conventional loans (which were less profitable).
The CRA was around for twenty/thirty years and never caused any huge systematic effect.
Even NOT as Government contractors, you see a lot of crap. They get away with it because they have a distributed user base, and within bounds, no matter what they do, there will be enough of a client base to say that one of their competitors has done worse.
Hell. Sony. Apple. Microsoft. Oracle.
And that's just limiting it to the computer industry? Need I go on?
Dunno about federal employees, I have a state retirement plan, and I pay boatloads into that. Even with private companies, their employees often also have retirement plans, and those are paid by what you pay for their services. So you pay it either way.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
Gotta love the strawman attacks for someone who has to hide behind the mask of anonymity.
As an alternative, how about embracing merit, as we have in the FOSS movement.
Good point. I fear this policy is fast coming to the rest of the West, looking at the demographics.
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.
Especially if you're going to replace all 30 with the next generation of equipment in the near future.
paintball
(just kidding)
If one guy's mistake causes a major loss, it is not that guy's fault. The real problem is in the system that allows one guy's mistake to fall through without a second guy catching it. If there is a simple error that causes a 25 megabuck loss, you set up a system that double and triple checks for that error.
I'd be seriously pissed if I had to drive a car where depressing accelerator and brake caused the accelerator command to be overridden.
Heh, something like that is actually a safety feature in some cars already, and They(TM) are considering making it mandatory. Accelerator override: Where if you press the brake, it cancels the accelerator. This is done because there are legit scenarios where the accelerator pedal can get suck. The big one is floor-mat-stuck-under-the-pedal. People panic and try to use the brakes to stop the car, and that's not always as effected as one would like.
Whether or not it's worth the costs in loss of control you describe, I dunno.
Semi-related: It occurs to me that if you really need that extra margin while changing lanes, you're probabbly driving inappropriately for a public road.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
Okay, here's one example of how RFID would work.
All all the tools have a RFID tag on them, the tool box has a RFID reader. If a tool isn't there, it lets you know.
Change the toolbox to a tool truck, or whatever they use for doing routine maintenance during fuel ups.
Better use for them then tagging people, for sure.
Be seeing you...
Doesn't anyone else find it ironic that a $244 million warplane can be crippled by a 10-cent (or whatever) plug? Proving once again that in war humans properly organized and led beat machines every time. Like in Vietnam.
What, you think this was MY fault? Well screw you guys I'm going home.
Are you serious?
well, it doesn't take a rocket surgeon to see that you're not going to bang one of these babies together over the weekend in your garage.
I certainly agree with your general point, but you actually can throw together a gas turbine in your garage in a weekend. I've done it. Start with the biggest diesel engine turbocharger you can find, build a combustion chamber, and then hack together all the other little bits needed to make it run. Of course, the design of the combustion chamber and the hacking together of all the support systems is quite a project! But it is totally achievable in a garage, and takes no more than a weekend if you have all the parts and a good design in advance. The result is a functional and very noisy but completely useless gas turbine engine.
I am a geek attorney, but not your geek attorney unless you've already retained me. This is not legal advice.
The ones who came up with the maintenance schedule and strategy deserve blame for allowing a situation where a single individual's error can result in this much damage.
Alright, fair enough. With the right tools, know-how, and some bitchin' access to parts that are already mostly in the form that you need, I suppose you COULD bang one together in a weekend.
Not a flight rated one, but one that would sure piss off the neighbors.
I think that the emergency brake sensor should be used as the override.
Again, it's a panic thing. People panic and try to use the (regular) brakes to stop the car. There are already ways to recover from a stuck accelerator: "Shift to neutral" and "turn ignition switch to OFF" being the most obvious. But when people are panicked because their car is accelerating out of control, they don't think clearly.
Plus, I think using the emergency brake would be a poor idea. The e-brake is typically the rear wheels only and lacks anti-lock; if it's the foot pedal variety it also typically lacks any fine control. That's a recipe for rear wheel lock-up, fish tailing, and loss of control.
It occurs to me that if you really need that extra margin while changing lanes, you're probabbly driving inappropriately for a public road.
sometimes you don't have a choice where you live and how dense the traffic is. You can either get where you want to, or you won't ever get to where you're going...
You're still probably driving inappropriately. The idea that you'll never get there because you needed to shave tens of microseconds for a lane change is... unlikely. And, ironically, people with that attitude are actually a big part of the traffic problem. If people drove properly everyone would get there faster. (See: http://trafficwaves.org/) But too many people either don't understand or don't care. Tragedy of the commons.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
Except federal employees no longer have the benefit you describe. They haven't had pensions or healthcare paid by the government for 30 years.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
This happened in 2009...
FERS is a defined-benefit plan. Maybe you don't call it a "pension", but it's the same thing.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
The Basic Benefit and Social Security parts of FERS require you to pay your share each pay period. Your agency withholds the cost of the Basic Benefit and Social Security from your pay as payroll deductions. Your agency pays its part too. Then, after you retire, you receive annuity payments each month for the rest of your life.
The TSP part of FERS is an account that your agency automatically sets up for you. Each pay period your agency deposits into your account amount equal to 1% of the basic pay you earn for the pay period. You can also make your own contributions to your TSP account and your agency will also make a matching contribution. These contributions are tax-deferred. The Thrift Savings Plan is administered by the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board.
OMG how dare they pay into their own retirement plan, and get some matching from the org they work for...Just like the commercial sector. I think that you might have read more into FERS than is actually there :)
source:
http://www.opm.gov/retire/pre/fers/index.asp
This is just like a 401k, but for the gov. It is not anything like a pension, as the org's contribution is while the employee is employed, not after.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Oops!
The contractor was a dog outfit, they didn't follow the TSO PERIOD. That's what happens when jobs are contracted on competitive bid. companies hire cheap labor and cut corners everywhere. That is the way most of our aircraft maintenance is going, south literally, Mexico, South America, China. I have been working on aircraft for 27 years 4 in the USMC F/A18, 12 years at Douglas and 11years at a heavy maintenance C-check facility. As a certified mechanic you call the shots not the boss or the company. You take the time to do it right no matter how long it takes, your ass is on the line.You put the airplane together the way the print, the AD, EO, AO, TSO, STC or whatever the legal document you are using says. If there is a question, request an engineer. Shit happens because people think they know better when they don't. It's good to question, but don't just make changes because you think its not right. We have made some remarkable repairs on aircraft, fabricating parts from scratch plus our company has an extensive supply of parts in Mojave. If an aircraft does not have a good inspection process in place, and mechanics are discouraged from changing parts, the airplane will fall apart. Spare parts need to have good history of serviceability to be airworthy. There are many old airplanes still in good shape because they are properly cared for.
I have no objection to TSP, and would like government workers to have TSP only. Right now, they also get a defined-benefit plan as part of FERS. It is much better than the old pension system, in that it gets pre-funded - but this funding is based on assumptions about the future. Should one of those assumptions fail, the taxpayer guarantees the pension fund.
Anyone who qualifies for FERS also qualifies for the health benefits, which of course cost a fortune.
Get rid of defined-benefit plans like the private sector did and make them pay the full healthcare cost (even if they can join the plan) and I'll be much happier about my government employees. :)
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
We are talking about sensing whether or not a plug is present that can destroy the airplane if it is present at the wrong time. More care is taken in sensing on your car. I don't know why people have so hard a time in understanding this. It would be a simple proximity sensor tied into a system that no doubt already exists.
It absolutely occurred for careless handling of contractor.So they are accountable for this accident. currency exchange