The Nation - News from Nov. 6, 1988

Poor quality controls may have resulted in the Air Force purchasing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of defective spare parts for guided missiles and aircraft. An internal Pentagon investigation said that the Defense Department inspector general’s office, testing random samples of parts bought by the Air Force over the last two years, estimated that a large percentage of the up to $7.8 billion annually spent for spare parts may have gone for items with major or minor defects. Investigators based their conclusions on a sample of parts valued at $112.4 million at one of the Air Force’s five purchasing centers. Investigators said none of the deficiencies in the parts was serious enough to threaten the safety of aircraft crews, or other personnel working on equipment in which the parts had been installed. Many deficiencies involved “minor irregularities,” such as a bolt that may have been 1 one-hundredth of an inch too long.