Associated Press
For decades, the Navy’s leading supplier of high-strength steel for submarines provided subpar metal because one of the company’s longtime employees falsified lab results — putting sailors at greater risk in the event of collisions or other impacts, federal prosecutors said in court filings Monday. The supplier, Kansas City-based Bradken Inc., paid $10.9 million as part of a deferred prosecution agreement, the Justice Department said. The company provides steel castings that Navy contractors Electric Boat and Newport News Shipbuilding use to make submarine hulls. More
when i lived in newport news the shipyard was building the Teddy Roosevelt. welders were getting paid by the stick and it turns out that some of them were simply laying sticks in the seams of the two inch hull and then welding over them. Heads rolled and a lot of reworking ensued.
I’m thinking all the rework this has, and will continue to cause, will be more costly than any pension she might have coming. Lock her up and confiscate all it takes to make the US taxpayers whole.
…sort of messes up that whole
“What’s long and hard and full of seamen” joke if it’s not as hard as it’s supposed to be…
And for the rest of us that do Gov manufacturing, look fucking out. Every time something like this happens the DCMA goes through everyone’s shorts.
Lobbyists are getting away with crimes and who are the majority of DC based lobbyists? Ex Reps and Senators. We screw ourselves by tolerating this crap to have been going on since Tom Jefferson was VP.
Hey Bad Brad – When you cross the Bay Bridge, do you ever wonder if It might collapse under you?
Crosses my mind almost every time.
Chinese steel rusting away………
Reminds me of when I was working at an AR manufacturing plant and I felt we should have been using DFARS compliant steel. The purchasers thought they were saving the company so much money buying Chinese steel. Needless to say, a lot of the gas blocks, bolt carriers, bolts and barrels were made with cheap Chinese steel. I cringe every time I think about it.
Sue the ethics depart of the university where she got her Metallurgical Engineering degree. They apparently issued her a diploma without requiring ethics. Sarc on several levels, but not totally.
Why does no one ever get sent to prison?
Keel haul her for deliberately selling sub par steel to the US Navy.
because one of the company’s longtime employees falsified lab results
No,, It was because the United States Government ALLOWED a company they were Purchasing from to do the testing.. Blame the company, and rightly so, but in the end,, the Government should have had some oversight going on there..Doesnt diminish the criminality of the falsified lab results,, but truth be told,, that was poorly handled,,
The article states the investigators confronted the inspector with records going back as far as 1990.
It also says she worked for the foundry for 40 years and expecting to retire in 2017, meaning she’s been there since 1977.
Cannot help but wonder if my boat (commissioned 1985) was one built with this sub-par steel, especially considering what was found during our 2003 drydock overhaul
Bad_Brad
JUNE 17, 2020 AT 5:28 PM
“And for the rest of us that do Gov manufacturing, look fucking out. Every time something like this happens the DCMA goes through everyone’s shorts.”
…tell me about it. Between this and the usual early year regulatory audits being put off due to FakeFlu, I fully expect to be welcomed back next week with a DSPC/DLA auditor holding a colonoscope for me to self-insert…
…all kidding aside, the article talks about “impact” risks, but if this is pressure hull steel, doesn’t that affect crush depth, too?
…seems like knowing how deep you can go without your boat collapsing onto you is something you would REALLY need to have confidence in…
I was part of a decommissioning crew that received a part of the cut hull; it was melted down, reformed, and affixed to a plaque. Wonder what a metallurgy test costs.
Maybe SecDef Esper should be second-guessing the military procurement process instead of second-guessing his Commander in Chief. Although it’s foolhardy to step on the toes of those who will reward him after he retires from government. Hard needle to thread.
Every weld on the pressure hull is xrayed. Just like every weld on our pipelines. That will tell you if the weld has voids, inclusions, or other anomalies. What that doesn’t tell you is the characteristics of the steel being welded.
I read a little bit about the steel used in submarine pressure hulls (the part you don’t see when you look at the outside) and recognized a few of the grading systems used. Saw where on one prototype of a particular class of sub the three inch thick hull was X100 steel. That stuff isn’t easy to weld when it’s three inches thick.
Don’t think for a moment I’m a welder. I ain’t. Just been around and paid some attention when welding gets done on my pipeline. Our welders work to the same standards used in nuke power plants. Most of ’em I’ve worked with are coonasses from Louisiana.
Watching a butt weld with the pipe on fire from a small leak (block valves don’t always stop everything) is interesting. Bothered me a lot when I was new to this job. A decade later with different welders I was the one setting it on fire to calm down the new welders because I was in the ditch with ’em. If you already have a fire, you can’t have an explosion. Narrow circumstances, steady state conditions, and one particular type of pipeline. Don’t try this at home.
Every ship is let out to the cheapest bidder. Been there, done that. Never bothered me at all.
My son is a welder at the Bremerton Shipyard. Those are tough jobs, and access can be a problem. He has gotten quite good at running a bead that passes the X-ray when he can’t see what he is doing except by looking at a mirror to watch his progress.
About 15 years ago they had some metal supplier falsifying certification on 6al-4v Titanium. There still in jail. The B1-B uses a lot of Ti and we build a lot of parts for that plane. We had the DCMA in here for weeks. A simple, we never used that vendor, would not suffice.
I heard a story about a boat (won’t say which one) that was accidentally taken beyond its rated “crush depth” by a stern planesman who collapsed on his yoke, causing the stern planes to go to full dive. The yokel officer who had “The Con” was doing Ahead Full at “test depth” at the time, which, as you might imagine, is kind of risky in any case. Before others could pull the man off his yoke and reverse the stern planes, the boat was WELL past its crush depth. That sub was subsequently re-rated with a test depth less than it’s previous one. My reaction to the story was, “That’s nice to know!”
From Jimmy: “… That sub was subsequently re-rated with a test depth less than it’s previous one. My reaction to the story was, “That’s nice to know!”
No reason to do that. It proved it was capable of performing in excess of the previous tested pressure test. It should have been uprated if it didn’t suffer damage.
Except that wasn’t Navy policy at the time, Lowell, at least as it was explained to me. We’re talking 70’s.
I’ll bet that the company that supplied the steel was less focused on QC and more on commitment to diversity and equity in their hiring, as the gov’t contract required. So there’s that.
Jail Jail Jail Jail Jail Jail Jail.
Executives included. They always seem to be immune.
My son is an ETN on a Los Angeles class submarine constructed between 1990 and 1992. This woman (prolly an affirmative action hire) who falsified the lab reports should have the skin flayed from her body while alive.
Nolan Parker
“the Government should have had some oversight going on there.”
They did. The DCMA. Source inspections range from surveillance to a quick stop in to check certification. DCMA QAR’s are glorified cert checkers. They wouldn’t know a good part, dimensionaly or process wise, if it bit them in the ass. That’s the way it is. Do you want to be the vendor that supplies sub standard parts to the military? Me neither. It’s just as easy to do the job correctly and meet the criteria. This is all on the vendor.
Have had in the past, opportunity to bid on government controlled contracts.
Rule #1 do not.
There are myriad reasons for this but if you are a small company steer clear.If you are a large corporation go for it,you can hide all sorts of shit and assume no responsibility.
Alexb
That’s my market and I hear your sentiments a lot. Makes me smile ear to ear. There’s a lot to know and it’s probably not worth it for the average business.
Is there a similarity here with the FAA allowing Boeing to certify it’s own flight control systems? The vendor is liable, no doubt, but what about DOD policy for independently confirming the steel quality? Holy socks, Mr. Government! For our fast attack and FBM submarines where that steel is the difference between breathing air or water, the quality of every “pour of steel” going into plating should be confirmed – at least ‘statistically’ (like every ‘N’ pours) as a check against the vendor. You’d think.
“The analysis showed that she fabricated the results of 240 productions of steel, representing nearly half of the high-yield steel Bradken produced for Navy submarines…”
After 24 years of clinton/bush/obama, this is normal character. Follow the money, though: it’ll wind up in some democrat pocket.
After a google and duckduckgo search, no pictures of her show up. Gee, I wonder what color she is….
@Bad_Brad
Thank you,Was beginning to think i was just a cranky old man.
Old Soviet Navy joke:
In Soviet Surface fleet, you find flooding. But in Soviet submarine fleet, flooding finds YOU
As long as the company put a wymyns in charge, it was worth it.