Fake parts scandal hitting major airlines... 1

[JohnRBaker]

While I'm not aware of any accidents caused by this situation, yet, it would seem that it's just a matter of time before something serious might happen which could result in a tragedy:

Escalating scandal grips airlines including American and Southwest, wreaking havoc on flight delays and cancellations as nearly 100 planes find fake parts from company with fake employees that vanished overnight

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/escalating-scandal-grips-airlines-including-190553757.html

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[3DDave]

The most likely cause is real parts taken from scrapped aircraft and engines and given false paper trails. There isn't a well defined danger to using the parts but there is the possibility that loss of traceability could mean that if a part is found to have been part of a run of parts with some defect, that such a part would not be located.

For example, the current problem for Airbus where a fan disk was found with some defect and now all disks from the same run are being taken out for inspection. Were one of them to escape the system and be reintroduced as a new part not from the flawed run, it may or may not have the defect, but it would also not be checked.

The situation is different than fabricating substandard parts, but aviation has a good record largely due to traceability and the ability to locate potentially flawed items before they cause problems. Note that traceability itself doesn't stop defects or prevent all crashes. It's like the rip-stop threads in rip-stop nylon fabric. It keeps a problem from escaping everywhere else.

 

[Murph 9000]

If they are recycling used parts with falsified paperwork, there could perhaps also be a risk of parts being used beyond their normal fatigue / service life (either number of flight hours or number of cycles).

 

[dik]

With running fatigue tests on fasteners, is there a large 'scatter' in the resulting data?

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

 

[SWComposites]

Fasteners are typically not the critical fatigue component in a well designed aerospace joint.

Sounds like the suspect parts are turbine blades and disks, which often have life limits and/or periodic detailed inspection requirements.

 

[dik]

Thanks, I would have thought they were the weakest part..

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

 

[JohnRBaker]

I would suspect that it would be the more expensive components which would be prone to being replaced with less-then properly manufactured/maintained/procured parts. Hardware, while critical, would not offer as much of a 'margin' for suppliers of so-called 'fake parts'.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[TugboatEng]

Tell that to ABB turbochargers where a one time use folding lock washer for a 10mm bolt costs $50. No papertrail included.

 

[JohnRBaker]

That sounds like downright greed and corruption...

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[3DDave]

Sometimes it is greed - sometimes it is "We don't want to sell little crap, but if you want it, here's how much we want to deal with it for you." The overhead to take an order and keep parts on a shelf doesn't change just because the order is small.

On the other hand - saw a video by a mechanic for small engines (chainsaws, mowers) look up prices for carburetor parts. A full kit of replaceable parts (all gaskets, metering, valve parts, screens) from the carb maker was about $10. Buy a single gasket from the equipment seller $10; the total cost for all the same parts in the kit was around $60. This high price would be from an equipment dealer that sells repair parts as a normal part of their business.

 

[TugboatEng]

Price is even higher now. Bolts are $8 and the washers are $67.

.

I bought 200 reusable wedge style lock washers from Heico in Inconel 718 for the price of 12 (1 turbocharger worth) of the one time use washers. We promptly retired that series engine (6 engines x 2 turbochargers each) before I got to use any.

 

[JohnRBaker]

Perhaps the engines were retired due to the high cost of repair parts, eh?

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[CWB1]

Small part prices are often driven more by overhead costs like stocking and shipping than part purchase price, so its not uncommon for one small part to cost to cost the same retail as a small kit of parts.

One of my extra-duties as a junior engineer was verifying the authenticity (or not) of potentially counterfeit products and parts for a major equipment OEM. I've seen everything from $20 fuel filters to $1M+ dozers knocked off. Counterfeiters often use stolen OEM prints which makes distinguishing real vs fake a matter of small manufacturing-process detail differences. And as mentioned in the linked article, counterfeiters are amazingly quick to disappear.

 

[TugboatEng]

The engines were retired because the state of California keeps declaring engines to be retired. Our current engines were installed new in 2018 thanks to funding that resulted from the Volkswagen lawsuit. Now CA is about to tell us to replace them again. These engines are normally installed with a 25+ year life expectancy. Replacement engines are not available to be purchased within the required replacement window. Regardless of funding this interferes with revenue.

CWB1, I understand that it costs money to store parts but this particular turbocharger has a wide range of applications and these washers are consumable. How the washer ended up costing nearly 10x the bolt is unexplainable.

 

[verymadmac]

I seem to recall a time magazine piece from 20 or so years ago, with the quote "fake aircraft parts are more profitable than drugs and you meet nicer people".

I would have thought the Engine OEM buy backs of time expired components of the more exotic alloys would have helped reduce these issues (unless those programs all got canned the minute the ore prices came back). But then the move by airlines to leased fleets has probably exacerbated the issue with the lessors refusing to accept airframe / engine returns when fitted with PMA parts (approved after market parts effectively) so OEM have been able to maintain higher price margins. Some of those small parts get pretty silly prices, I have done a number of mod's to allow in house manufacture of alternative parts which purchasing then pointed out to the OEM just to ensure they consider the loss of business on other parts should they continue with their margins (this apparently works with designing / approving repairs in-house as well when you do send one to Boeing you get a much better service than if you send them all our repairs).

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

there was an aircraft called G-UIST which was a Jetstream 31 and it was a warrior of the west coast of Scotland and owned by a dude called Alan M

It was used in the bat man film and destroyed.

10 years later in a hanger in Sweden I saw 2 SLR units with green tags which stated that they were from that aircraft.

My mate got the airframe off the film company and did it up and its now in a museum as a display that kids can flick switches.

Paul being a short arse "fugly" who was a TRE in its last company had access to its bible doca. We have the original serial numbers of the SRL's coming out of Prestwick from manufacture in the 80's. those are the ones in the museum. they are worth nothing, stick a green tag on them anfd they are worth 25k dollars each.

Highland airways had 2 boxes of green tags approx. 2k disappear when they went bust. I was seeing parts from UIST 10 years later and enough of them to build 5-6 airframes. And i still get an occasion email about green tag parts signed by "Barry" thats over 15 years since i have flown one. Aparently a green tag faa goes foe 200 and easa goes for 400

 

[debodine]

Many years ago (about 30) I was tasked to be part of a team from my company sent to a federal special agent who was investigating some bad parts. These parts were antennas and the special agent had determined that a certain facility was obtaining antennas from airplanes, cleaning and re-painting and hanging an inspection tag on them to certify them as overhauled and airworthy. The problems that the special agent discovered were:
[ol 1]
[li]No manufacturer's data existed for overhauling these antennas. They were intended to be testable but not reparable and once they failed the testing or were damaged, they were to be scrapped.[/li]
[li]The facility did not own or have access to the correct test equipment to perform the manufacturer's return to service tests.[/li]
[li]The tags being hung on them were "pre-signed" by a company inspector that had left the company at least a year prior. It turned out that the owner had obtained these pre-signed tags from the now departed inspector. The special agent did not share with us how the pre-signed tags were obtained.[/li]
[/ol]

Our marching orders were 1) learn how to identify these parts so they could be tracked in our system, and 2) make sure the special agent had no heartburn with us as victims of the deception.

For a simple aircraft modification engineer it was definitely out of the ordinary for me!

 

[enginesrus]

Tugboat, why does the outfit even bother staying there? Its time for any business with ICE to leave.

 

[TugboatEng]

We have competitors. I guess it's a waiting game to see who can hold out against oppressive regulation the longest. The prize is a monopoly for the winner allowing us to raise our rates to whatever level the industry will tolerate.

 

[JohnRBaker]

Another item:

The most dangerous scam in aviation history? How mystery fraudster duped the world's biggest airlines into using FAKE turbines, nuts and bolts in $3 MILLION scheme that had an army of hoax staffers and dummy offices including one near Buckingham Palace

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...ces-including-one-near-Buckingham-Palace.html

An excerpt from the above item:

A company accused of selling bogus jet-engine parts which have been used in aircraft across the globe was started in the UK by a shadowy businessman who allegedly promoted the business with faked LinkedIn profiles and a 'virtual' office near Buckingham Palace.

AOG Technics supplied parts that have been used in at least 126 commercial aircraft engines in planes operated by companies including Delta and United.

But the parts were allegedly backed up by forged paperwork and dozens of aircraft have been grounded for urgent maintenance.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without