An F-35B Lightning II idles on the flight deck of amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli during night flight operations Jan. 19, 2022. (Peter Burghart/U.S. Navy)
(Tribune News Service) — Two former employees are suing an Oregon-based aerospace company, alleging it supplied substandard parts to defense contractors for installation in the U.S. military’s F-35 fighter jets.
Selmet Inc. in Albany allegedly falsified records and shipped improperly inspected and poorly finished plane parts to customers to meet production quotas and deadlines, the ex-employees say in the federal suit filed in Eugene.
The company fired one of the two workers and pushed the other out by offering him a lower-level job after they both repeatedly reported the alleged fraud to their supervisors, the suit alleges.
The F-35s are built with stealth technology for bombing and strafing ground targets and reconnaissance. Selmet is the major subcontractor for engine exhaust nozzle parts and Pratt & Whitney is the government’s primary contractor for the engines, according to court records.
“Imagine a pilot going in to drop bombs — and his thrusters go out because we didn’t do our work properly,” former inspector Stephen Cardwell would frequently say in front of co-workers when raising concerns internally, according to the suit.
A judge recently unsealed the whistleblower complaint against Selmet. It was originally filed in 2020.
The U.S. government is continuing to investigate the claims and last month notified the court that it hasn’t yet decided whether to intervene on behalf of the two whistleblowers, according to court documents.
The complaint accuses the manufacturer of violating the False Claims Act. False Claims Act litigants can sue on behalf of the government and be rewarded up to 25% of any settlement if the government intervenes and up to 30% if the government decides not to intervene. Success rates greatly improve when the government signs on to a case.
It’s typical for the government to seek the sealing of a complaint during its investigation in such cases. The federal act was enacted in 1863 in response to defense contractor fraud during the Civil War.
“We look forward to litigating the case,” said attorney Patrick S. Almonrode, who represents the former employees.
Selmet officials and an attorney who represented them in the past didn’t respond to email or phone messages seeking comment.
John LaPlant of Albany joined the company in October 2017 and was eventually promoted to be a night supervisor in an area of the plant where parts underwent final inspections, testing and finishing steps before shipping, according to the complaint. He was fired July 31, 2019.
Cardwell was an inspector on the evening shift from March 2019 until about October 2019, when he was pressured to leave, the complaint says.
Selmet, which produces cast titanium parts for the aerospace industry, makes flaps for the exhaust nozzles on the F-35s. Pratt & Whitney buys the flaps from Selmet using U.S. Department of Defense funds.
Selmet is expected to put the exhaust nozzle parts through multiple inspection steps before shipping them to customers for installation in military and other civilian planes. At various stages, the part may be welded, ground, heat-treated and subjected to a chemical bath to ensure it fits and functions properly when installed, the suit says.
According to the two whistleblowers, Selmet supervisors typically encouraged line workers to “cut corners and skip some of these steps” or perform them in a “slipshod manner” to meet production demands.
The two defect-detection processes most frequently skipped were liquid-penetrant testing and visual/dimensional inspections using the human eye, X-ray and measurements of a part, according to the suit.
“The workplace culture at Selmet valued ‘throughput’ above all other metrics” and supervisors typically encouraged workers to “ignore flags — or inadequate attempts to fix flaws” to meet production deadlines, the complaint alleges.
“The supervisors falsified documents or required workers to falsify documents showing that work … had been performed when it had not, and that parts were ready to ship when they were not,” the suit says.
Pratt & Whitney and other government contractors returned many parts to Selmet, including the exhaust nozzle parts for the F-35 as “unserviceable,” but the company would “sneak” them back into the production line with paperwork that didn’t show a customer had rejected them, according to the former employees.
LaPlant and Cardwell believe that many substandard parts were installed in F-35s and other military planes, according to their complaint.
When LaPlant raised concerns, supervisors told him that he was “worrying about things that were not part of his job,” that he had to “pick his battles,” and he needed to do things, “the Selmet way,” according to the suit.
When LaPlant was called into a supervisor’s office on July 31, 2019, he was told he was being fired for not responding to work emails promptly — what he contends was a “pretext” for getting rid of him because of his concerns.
Cardwell alleged that supervisors frequently overrode his rejection of parts that failed his inspection and falsified paperwork to be able to ship them, the suit says. In some cases, someone else at the company put his employee number on the paperwork to indicate he had cleared the parts, the suit alleges.
In October 2019, Cardwell was given the choice of taking a lower-level job or moving to day shift as an inspector but report to two supervisors who had already “demeaned and mocked him” whenever he complained, according to the suit.
The complaint seeks a civil penalty against Selmet, as well as a court order directing the company to cease its alleged fraud, help the government and contractors find and remove any faulty parts on military aircraft and replace them at Selmet’s expense.
The two former employees are also seeking reinstatement to their jobs and back pay.
The F-35 was one of the most expensive weapons systems ever developed, with each jet costing between $89 and $115 million, according to the complaint.
Its production came under harsh criticism years ago because the Pentagon, along with Lockheed Martin, planned to test the jets during production and fix problems on the assembly line as they were found to get more of the jets in the air faster, according to an ABC News report in 2012.
In 2020, Oregon OSHA fined Selmet $27,500 for violating safety rules after an Aug. 15, 2019, furnace explosion at the foundry injured two workers. The blast blew the roof off part of the building and left one worker with multiple burns to his head, neck, arms, and chest. The force of the blast threw another worker into a parts table.
The investigation identified three serious violations, including problems with the plant’s layout and design and inadequate work clothing and equipment, according to OSHA.
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