Delta is fourth major U.S. airline to find fake jet aircraft engine parts with forged airworthiness documents from U.K. company

L4sBot@lemmy.worldmod to Technology@lemmy.world – 719 points –
Delta is fourth major U.S. airline to find fake jet aircraft engine parts with forged airworthiness documents from U.K. company
fortune.com

Delta is fourth major U.S. airline to find fake jet aircraft engine parts with forged airworthiness documents from U.K. company::With forged airworthiness documents from U.K. company

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Put people in prison for this.

If we ever find out that these parts were involved in a plane crash, screw prison, put them on trial and treat them like serial killers. That's the death penalty.

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I fail to see how someone can understand the aircraft parts industry enough to enter it and become a supplier, and at the same time believe you can get away with forging certifications.

You see parts every day. Maybe you make them. They come with a small stack of certs that you add to. You figure nobody will notice if you do a special process yourself and copy a cert. 500 parts or 501? Maybe 510? Maybe you buy material with no certs, but you verify the conductivity and hardness. You know it's the right alloy, but it was cheaper. Who's going to notice? Once you get started, where do you stop?

I'd love to see a breaking bad style dram based on this haha.

It'd be kind of amusing. You could just have a few people in on it and they make it work. Then one of the quality peeps notices some quantities are off. Maybe mix in some source/delegated source or pay off some FAA dfars.

Next thing you know, your brother in law parts inspector is being executed by Nazis and your former partner is about to be enslaved by them to make super high quality fake parts, but you first tell him that you watched his gf get on to a 737 MAX with a fuel gauge that showed imperial system units instead of metric and could have saved her but instead just watched it crash (which also caused her paramedic father to space out and fail to save a heroin OD, which goes to show that dealing with fraudulent plane parts can have a wider impact than just the planes it causes to crash).

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It would basically be the story told through the eyes of Madrigal corporate executives.

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They thought - correctly, I might add - that they could get away with it for a while. They just mistimed their exit.

They made their money. They knew sooner or later they would get caught but it doesn’t matter any money they made more than covers it. Same for companies who decide letting people die and paying claims is cheaper than a full recall

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Man this entire country is corrupt from top to bottom.

Look on the bright side here. What we have is a case of parts with some forged documentation. It’s not like planes had bananas instead of spark plugs. We had a supplier forge some of the very rigorous documentation we require for plane parts. And they got caught. Later than we might have liked, but they weren’t found out because some plane crashed.

Honestly, if you accept that there will always be some bad actors out there, this looks a lot like a system that’s working.

The UK? What else is corrupt there? Not very knowledgeable about it.

The UK Government has stopped court cases investigating corruption, as was the case with a particular Saudi arms deal. There's the never ending corruption around members of the royal family selling influence (and property at inflated prices) to foreign elements, particularly from the Arabian Gulf but also former Soviet states.

There's the fact London has been the money laundering capital of the world for much of my life, this money has been used to influence politicians to turn a blind eye or even advocate for blatantly corrupt and abusive regimes.

Tony Blair, a former head of government, is the best example of such. He has spent (at least) the past decade "advising" criminal regimes around the globe on how to massage their images.

The UK is a pretty murky place to anyone who bothers to pay attention. The rule of law that they have established is for the sake of financial stability, to keep the charade going. It certainly isn't for the benefit of the common man.

There’s the fact London has been the money laundering capital of the world for much of my life

Had absolutely no idea about this. This is fascinating.

Suggested reading:

Butler to the World: The Book the Oligarchs Don't Want You to Read - How Britain Helps the World's Worst People Launder Money, Commit Crimes, and Get Away With Anything - Oliver Bullough

Money Land - Oliver Bullough

The Establishment: And How They Get Away With It - Owen Jones

Kleptopia - Tom Burgis

Treasure Islands: Uncovering the Damage of Offshore Banking and Tax Havens - Nicholas Saxson

Very Bad People: The Inside Story of the Fight Against the World’s Network of Corruption - Patrick Alley

I very much appreciate the recommendations but also I literally bust out laughing at that first title. They couldn't make it just a bit longer? Even funnier juxtaposed with the other title by the same author lol

If I didn't Google these and know they existed I would have thought this was just straight up classic British humor.

Petty corruption is pretty decently under control (you can't bribe a police officer if they pull you over), but institutional corruption, politicians amd their buddies, that had a field day with COVID measures and is very much alive and kicking.

See this example of "legal" affairs that stink of corruption. A lot of land was force-bought to make way for a new high-speed line to be laid. Huge overruns later, the line has been chopped short, it will no longer run across certain tracts of land. So a tonne of land that was appropriated from citizens is now going to be sold off. I feel sure the price on those sales will be below market value and it will be sold to their buddies.

Or Nick Clegg, the former deputy Prime Minister who, when he left government, went into a veeery cushy job at Meta.

Wild man. I had no idea. As an outside person with casual interest, I don't come across this kind of info much. I appreciate it.

Fairly sure it's just a top.

No one else has the money to be corrupt. Although if any of you want to sponsor me, I'm up for it.

Sometimes the thought occurs to me that the only thing standing between me and being absurdly rich by way of saying reprehensible shit on a YouTube channel, is my inconvenient conscience

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Find out how this happened and put new safeguards in place to prevent it from happening in the future

This is the best summary I could come up with:


Delta Air Lines Inc. has discovered unapproved components in “a small number” of its jet aircraft engines, becoming the latest carrier and fourth major US airline to disclose the use of fake parts.

The suspect components — which Delta declined to identify — were found on an unspecified number of its engines, a company spokesman said Monday.

The problematic pieces, which were certified by AOG, were detected during engine work by an unnamed third party, the spokesman said.

As many as 21 of Delta’s engines could have been affected, according to Bloomberg calculations based on data provided by the airline, which would represent the most among US carriers that have disclosed a number.

“Working with the overhaul provider, we are in the process of replacing those parts and remain in compliance with all FAA guidelines.”

AOG last month was ordered by a London judge to hand over records to help identify additional suspect parts after GE and Safran filed a lawsuit seeking documents relating to “every single sale of products.”


The original article contains 391 words, the summary contains 170 words. Saved 57%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

Lol. I used to be a Delta fan, but honestly they've been just as shitty as the others recently; they don't seem any better than American or United. At least they're still better than Spirit, I guess.

I need to remember to cancel my Delta Amex before they charge me another annual fee, it ain't really worth it anymore IMO.

If you fly just once a year with a companion it’s worth keeping, just not worth spending on especially after the recent SkyMiles gutting.

Imo Delta’s still decently better than United and American but costs disproportionally more, to the point where it’s probably not worth it anymore. I also have a personal dislike of those two for suing Skiplagged (so sleazy) though so I continue to fly Delta. Plus United beat up that doctor and American has a high baggage loss rate.

Plus United beat up that doctor and American has a high baggage loss rate

And Delta pilots intentionally dumped fuel over Los Angeles schools. We have no angels.

Wow that’s just awful, hadn’t heard about that. It’s been years and the FAA investigation appears to either be ongoing or silently killed? Hope they’re still working on it.

Also I wasn't saying Delta is an angel obviously, it’s an airline. They suck too, especially recently. I don’t want to defend them at all and, if I could choose, I’d dissolve the whole company and start anew to make a better airline.

That said, Delta didn’t direct their pilots to do that, it could have been any of them. Same with the doctor beating incident. But United’s vile CEO vehemently defended the beating and tried to paint the victim as deserving, while I haven’t seen any indications that Delta’s corporate leadership tried to back up their idiotic pilots. United feels toxic, which is a shame because I also have status with them from a partnering company. Whereas Delta simply feels like garbage, though it may be because I missed all the bad news about them.

I’m not downplaying it— Flight 89 caused far more damage than the doctor beating or some lost baggage. It’s easily the worst of any airline scandal I can think of. Just feels like it was luck that Delta hired those pilots when they could have been on any plane, and the CEO didn’t go around saying “the schoolchildren were belligerent and the crew followed procedure”.

Does this imply, that if this is happening with major airlines, then the rest of airlines would be less befallen of fake engine parts?

I can imagine that major airlines might not be subject to the level of scrutiny when inspected, as do not-so-established airlines.

I would love to think, that the article describes the worst it can get, regarding fake engine parts in plane construction.

The part supplier is the issue, the airlines weren’t aware they were being sold counterfeit parts. Chances are that many airlines, including small ones, purchased parts from this supplier. I’d be more likely to trust an airline that found these counterfeit parts than one who didn’t, it means they have a good maintenance / inspection system.

I cant speak for the rest of the world, but if any of the affected 65 engines are in aircraft under FAA jurisdiction, the airlines have been digging. This exact scenario is why the FAA has strict traceability standards.