RINJANI UMMU SYINA (008201400093) / Auditing

A7D Aircraft Brake Scandal

On June 18th 1967, the B. E Goodrich Wheel and Brake Plant in Troy, Ohio,
received a contract supply wheels and brakes for a new air force aircraft. Form a
business perspective, working under government contracts can be a very good
proposition. In general, a stream of orders keep coming in, revenue increases and a
company can realizer tremendous profit. But if a part fails to perform correctly, it can
cause problems that can carry serious repercussions. In this essay, Id like to talk about
A7D aircraft brake scandal that produced by Goodrich.
Long short story, Goodrich proposed a lighter-weight brake (not the traditional
one). Before the air force could accept the brake that made by Goodrich, they have to
present a report showing that the brake passed specified military qualifying tests. The
last two week of June 1968 were set aside for testing the brake which is giving Goodrich
almost a full year for design and testing.
John Warren and Searle Lawson are the one who assigned responsibility for final
production. They use prototype for testing the break. The first result the brakes were
disintegrated and they try another way to make sure that its the other things that was
the problem, not the brakes. Again, the test failed. And he concluded that there was a
design flaw that the brake was to small and not effective. In this point, if they have to do
more design and test itd like take too much time and delay on the delivery time.
After 12 tests were conducted, each was resulting failure. Test flights by the air
force now only 70 days away. In April 1978, Kermit Vandivier became involved with th
brakes. He had discovered many discrepancies between the military specifications and
the qualification test carried out at Goodrich. It was Vandiviers job to write the
documentation to accompany the testing data in qualification report.
Vandivier was wrong in preparing the report. Professional codes of ethics would most
likely prohibit any practice that would damage the reputation of the person and the
profession as a whole. Vandivier ignored his conscience, choosing self-interest instead:
he considered the immediate impact of losing his job over the long-term ramifications of
his decision: lawsuits, jail, and loss of integrity.
Vandivier was correct to blow the whistle. But, ultimately, he was morally wrong to wait
until LTV pilots almost injured themselves. Goodrich could promote a transparency
policy and guarantee freedom from punitive actions if an employee report immoral,
illegal, and unethical behaviors and practices. Since this problem was very ingrained in
the culture at Goodrich, the appointment of an outside agency to handle all affairs
dealing with ethics could prove their sincerity in having an ethical workplace.

References: https://cliffordcolvard.wordpress.com/2014/06/14/the-a7d-and-b-fgoodrich/
https://cliffordcolvard.wordpress.com/2014/06/14/the-a7d-and-b-f-goodrich/