A military contractor swapped in
parts meant for other aircraft, failed to properly inspect parts and
filed false inspection reports in construction of two of the U.S.'s
workhorse helicopters, a former inspector alleges in a federal lawsuit.
The man, Jerry T.
Pollinger of Arlington, Texas, was fired in April 2012 from the Vought
Aircraft Division of Triumph Aerostructures of Grand Prairie, near
Dallas, after he complained about widespread irregularities in the
company's work on the Air Force's C-17 helicopter and the Army's UH-60
Black Hawk helicopter, according to a wrongful termination suit filed this week in U.S. District Court in Dallas (PDF).
Pollinger alleges that from 2007 until he was fired in 2012, workers at
the company knowingly installed defective parts, improperly reusedparts
that had been removed from other assemblies, bent parts to make them fit
in assemblies they weren't made for, failed to perform proper
electrical tests and filed false inspection reports.
Triumph-Vought
also defrauded the U.S. government by filing false claims for payment
through Boeing, Pollinger alleges, and encouraged employees not to raise
issues of compliance with contractual requirements.
Pollinger,
who claims he never got a reply when he tried to report the alleged
misconduct to Triumph-Vought's ethics hotline, wants a federal jury to
give him his job back, along with back pay, interest, court costs and
attorney's fees.
Triumph-Vought makes cabin structures for the
UH-60 Black Hawk and a variety of components, including tail sections
and rudders, for the C-17 Globemaster III, which is scheduled to be
phased out of service beginning next year.
Triumph-Vought didn't return calls seeking comment.
The
suit makes no claims of misconduct by Boeing Co., which makes the C-17,
or Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., which makes the Black Hawk. Neither company
is a party to the action.
Both choppers, which are mainstays of
the U.S. military fleet and have been sold to dozens of other countries,
are considered highly reliable aircraft.
Source: http://www.nbcnews.com
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment