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DoD: Firm supplied weak titanium for aircraft

As many as 7,900 titanium aircraft parts installed in military planes could be made of metal that’s too weak for the job, according to documents from a four-year Defense Department investigation.

Executives with Western Titanium, a metal supplier to Boeing, the Air Force and other government contractors, were indicted Dec. 4 for fraud over metal provided for Air Force F-22s, F-15s and C-17s, Navy F-18s, and NASA’s Kepler spacecraft.

“Several of these parts were placed on active-duty military aircraft” that were or are in active service, according to an affidavit in support of a search of Western’s business records.

“These parts include flight-safety-critical parts, including, but not limited to, the engine mounts used on the F-15 aircraft,” according to the affidavit, filed by Defense Department investigators in April.

The federal court of California’s southern district charged four executives of Western Titanium, based in San Diego, with eight counts of fraud and conspiracy for allegedly falsifying the quality certificates of titanium supplied to customers. The Western executives charged were owner and chief executive Daniel Schroeder, former vice president of sales John Cotner, current vice president of sales Brian Misak and quality assurance manager Cheem Ang.

“We aggressively will defend ourselves against these allegations, and we expect to be fully vindicated,” said Nancy Luque, an attorney representing Western Titanium.

The Air Force took three years to conclude the majority of the F-15 engine mounts made with Western’s titanium were weaker than what was required by the service, according to the affidavit. The Air Force did not provide information on other parts that were alluded to in the affidavit but not pointed out specifically. The Air Force also did not respond by the time this story was posted to other questions about aircraft safety relative to the investigation.

At issue is how titanium sold by Western to aircraft parts suppliers was forged.

The process

The metal Western was supposed to supply is made by heating titanium ore and then feeding it through giant steel rollers, stretching the metal to several hundred times its original thickness. Metal treated this way is stronger in certain directions, as a result of the aligning of the metal’s grain, similar to a piece of wood.

Instead, the government said, Western used a faster and cheaper process in which a press squashes the metal into shape and then cuts the metal down to a rolled thickness. The feds also allege that Western executives cherry-picked sections of metal to be tested to ensure they would pass spot checks for certification.

Discovery of the alleged substitution of methods by a Boeing supplier audit in 2004 prompted the Defense Department to investigate Western.

The revelation of the investigation came as a surprise to NASA, which may have to delay the launch of the Kepler spacecraft because of components made with Western titanium, according to internal e-mails in a Dec. 16 report from Flight International.

Boeing spokeswoman Amy Horton would not comment other than to say the company was fully cooperating with the investigation.

Some engineers, such as Tom Eagar, a professor of material science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said that it is not clear that pressed titanium is more likely to fail than the rolled variety.

“Are planes going to fall out of the sky? No, I don’t think so,” Eagar said after he reviewed some of the Air Force’s test findings from the affidavit.

The real issue, he said, was whether Western deviated from the government’s strict requirements.

“In aerospace, we have a lot more controls. You have to be able to trace a given part, often cases, back to the mine where they get the ore,” Eagar said. “The real thing is you’re not allowed to change your recipes without approval.”

This is the second time this year Boeing has had problems with titanium suppliers. In May, the Washington state aerospace company settled out of court a lawsuit with metal-maker Alcoa over raw materials it supplied to Boeing’s part of the F-22 program.