A Senate committee investigation found myriad instances of suspected counterfeit parts in weapon systems including military aircraft, and it leaders want the defense industry to contribute more for replacement parts.
The Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), through a months-long investigation, found roughly 1,800 cases of alleged counterfeit electronic parts that were identified by companies in the Department of Defense supply chain, and estimated the total number of suspect parts exceeds 1 million.
SASC staff investigated more than 100 of the 1,800 cases identified by defense firms, and in 70 percent of the instances found the suspected counterfeit materials came from China.
“In the course of its investigation, the committee has uncovered dozens of instances of suspect counterfeit electronic parts in defense systems,” the SASC states in a background memo. “Counterfeit or suspect counterfeit electronic parts have been installed or delivered to the military for use on thermal weapons sights, on THAAD missile mission computers, and on military aircraft, including the C-17, C-130J, C-27J, P-8A Poseidon, AH-64, SH-60B, and CH-46.”
The SASC will hold a hearing today to explore three specific cases where alleged counterfeit parts from China were installed on systems made by three U.S. firms. The three cases relate to parts for night-vision systems in the SH-60B helicopters Raytheon makes for the Navy; display units on C-27J aircraft L-3 Communications manufacturers for the Air Force, and ice-detection systems on the P-8A Poseidon airplane Boeing produces for the Navy.
The SASC said today’s hearing “will explore sources of counterfeit electronic parts and how they are made, cases where counterfeit electronic parts have penetrated the defense supply chain, and the cost and potential impact of counterfeit electronic parts on defense systems.”
SASC Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) told reporters yesterday that while he wants the Chinese government to clamp down on the counterfeiters, he also wants action from the U.S. defense industry. He said the committee may try to add language to the fiscal year 2012 defense authorization bill, during the upcoming Senate floor debate, that would require contractors to pay for replacing counterfeit parts found in their systems.
Levin said it is not always clear when companies have cost-plus contracts with the Pentagon if the firms or the government must pay for the replacement parts.
“The contractor must be responsible to make the replacement and that will cause contractors, we believe, to tell their subs and their subsuppliers and so forth that they must make sure that the parts which are being sold along this chain…(are) true parts, legitimate parts,” he said. “And if you put the onus on all of our contractors, which we should do, to make sure that the parts being supplied are legitimate parts, they will get that message back to their suppliers as well. So there’s a lot to be done.”
Speaking at a Capitol Hill press conference with SASC Ranking Member John McCain (R-Ariz.), Levin said that regardless of the types of contracts, he wants tougher requirements for contractors to immediately report cases of suspected counterfeit parts in military systems through the Government-Industry Data Exchange Program.
“That is not being done in most cases now as it should be,” he said. “This program is aimed at alerting others of the counterfeit problem, something…that did not happen in the vast number of the cases that we discovered.”