August 07, 2008
Pratt & Whitney and PCC Airfoils will pay the United States $52.3 million to resolve False Claims Act allegations that the two companies knowingly sold defective turbine blade replacements for jet engines used in military aircraft. According to the Dept. of Justice press release, the government alleged that replacement turbine blades designed by Pratt & Whitney and cast by PCC failed to meet a critical design dimension. This defect caused the crash of an F-16 fighter aircraft in Arizona on June 10, 2003; the pilot ejected safely.
The case was pursued as part of a National Procurement Fraud initiative, which was designed to promote the early detection, identification, prevention and prosecution of procurement fraud.