Tuesday, February 01, 2000
Army inspection may buttress whistle-blower's suit
BY MIKE BOYER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
An Army inspection order requiring removal of faulty transmission gears from its Chinook twin-rotor helicopters could have an impact on a federal whistle-blower's lawsuit pending in Cincinnati.
The Army inspection order, the second in six months involving the Chinook helicopter, requires the removal of engine transmission gears made from a metal alloy known as Vasco X2M and machined at Speco Co., a now defunct subcontractor to Boeing Co., which produces the Chinook CH-47.
Speco, which was based in Springfield, Ohio, and the Vasco metal are at the center of a 5-year-old, multimillion-dollar False Claims Act lawsuit filed against Boeing by Brett Roby, a former Speco quality inspector. The False Claims Act is a Civil War-era law that allows private citizens to sue contractors suspected of fraud on behalf of the government.
Mr. Roby, in a suit joined in 1997 by the Justice Department, maintains that Seattle-based Boeing knew Speco was supplying faulty transmission gears for the Chinook, the Army's medium tactical heavy-lift transport.
Frederick M. Morgan, one of the Cincinnati attorneys for Mr. Roby, who now lives in Arkansas, said the Army's ac tion “makes our case better.”
He said the significance of the new Army order is that it includes some Speco gears which were previously inspected by Boeing and found without problems.
Speco produced hundreds of Chinook transmission gears for Boeing. It was liquidated in bankruptcy in 1997.
A spokesman for Boeing's Philadelphia-based helicopter business said he couldn't comment on what impact the Ar my's action would have on Mr. Roby's lawsuit, which is pending before U.S. District Judge S. Arthur Spiegel in Cincinnati.
The Boeing spokesman said the company was providing technical assistance to the Army for the inspection.
Dan O'Boyle, a spokesman for the Army Aviation Program Executive Office at Redstone Arsenal in Alabama, said the Army late Thursday ordered inspection and removal of the Speco gears after the Royal Air Force discovered minute cracks and “divots” during routine maintenance.
Mr. O'Boyle said cracked gears were subsequently found at the Army's Corpus Christi depot.
The Army has 466 Chinooks and there are about 800 in service around the world.
Mr. Morgan said he understood that about 120 Chinooks could be grounded by the inspection order.
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