Faking It

By Dan Dupont / April 30, 2010 at 5:00 AM

The issue of counterfeit parts in the military supply chain is back in the news, as you may have noted. From our story yesterday:

The Defense Department is unable to vet counterfeit parts from U.S. weapon systems' supply chain, a shortcoming that has exposed Air Force aircraft to bogus parts such as sensitive electronics and metals used in critical components, according to a new report by congressional auditors.

That report, from the Government Accountability Office, is here.

It contains this little nugget of interesting info:

In April 2009 DOD formed a departmentwide team -- partially in response to media reports that highlighted the existence of counterfeit parts in the DOD supply chain10 -- to collect information and recommend actions to mitigate the risk of counterfeit parts in its supply chain.

And what media reports are those? Here's one, from the GAO report's footnote:

"Fake Parts are Seeping Into Military Aircraft Maintenance Depots,” Inside the Air Force (Mar. 28, 2008) . . . .

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