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There was an aluminum extrusion company that falsified test records for years. They got away with it because what's a few % when your customer's safety factor

There was an aluminum extrusion company that falsified test records for years. They got away with it because what's a few % when your customer's safety factor is 2. Once they got into weight sensitive aerospace applications, where sometimes the factor is 1.2, rockets starting blowing up on the launch pad. https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/aluminum-extrusion-manufacturer-agrees-pay-over-46-million-defrauding-customers-including https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/aluminum-extrusion-m...

aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA 1y ago
Should have resulted in jail time. A monetary fine is no deterrent.
- Scramblejams 1y ago
  It did result in jail time. The linked document states that the testing lab supervisor was sentenced to 3 years. (Not sure how much of that time was actually served, apparently he was suffering from dementia.) More info: https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2018/08/company_supervisor_who_falsifi.html https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2018/08/company_supervis... Also a correction to GP: They were payload deployment failures, they didn't blow up on the pad. More here: https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/05/nasa-finally-concludes-investigation-of-two-failed-launches-a-decade-ago/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/05/nasa-finally-conclud...