Employees Seeking Bonuses Suspected : FBI Probes Apparent O-Ring Sabotage

The FBI said Friday it is investigating apparent sabotage of O-rings destined for space shuttle booster rockets, a problem that a NASA official said may have been motivated by a company incentive program.

The defects were detected before any damaged rings were sent to the rocket maker.

A “very small number” of O-rings that appeared to have been deliberately cut were discovered in June by the manufacturer, HydraPak Inc., and the incident was reported to the FBI, NASA and rocket maker Morton Thiokol Inc., said James Dockstader, HydraPak vice president of operations.

None Shipped

Dockstader said a check showed that none of the flawed seals were shipped to Morton Thiokol.

“These things are inspected more times than you can hardly believe. But it’s a serious nature. This O-ring has a great deal of visibility in the space program and around the world, and we can understand that. They are handled very carefully,” he said.

A faulty O-ring that allowed super-hot exhaust gases to escape through a joint and ignite the shuttle’s exterior fuel tank was blamed by a presidential commission for the Jan. 28, 1986, Challenger explosion, which killed the seven crew members and grounded the nation’s shuttle program.

Bonuses Awarded

J. R. Thompson, director of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., said some HydraPak employees are suspected of damaging O-rings to receive bonuses awarded to workers who found defects.

“My understanding is they tightened internal final inspection, incentivized it or came up with some kind of program to make sure (no flawed O-rings) got out,” Thompson told the Huntsville Times.

“After HydraPak set up this internal thing, perhaps some employees may have been taking advantage of it. That’s what’s suspected. Whether it’s a fact, I don’t know. We’re treating it as an internal HydraPak thing,” he said.

Awarded Points

Under the plan, workers reportedly were awarded points for finding defects missed in previous inspections. When they accumulated enough points, they received a cash bonus. However, the system was eliminated after the defects appeared, the newspaper reported.

Dockstader denied that HydraPak employees were given a cash incentive and said Thompson was “either misinformed or misquoted.”

“Employees do not benefit monetarily from finding a defect,” he said. When asked if the company had a point-system incentive plan, Dockstader said he could not comment.

He did confirm a Huntsville Times report that, in addition to the O-rings that were cut, several others were left in a curing oven believed to have been left deliberately on a hotter-than-normal setting.

Slash Marks

Former HydraPak inspector Cathy Crocker told KSL-TV on Friday that she found three O-rings with slash marks as early as May, but management was unable to determine who was responsible.

After more cuts were found, Crocker said she was asked to take a lie-detector test.

“I did. I had nothing to hide. I liked my job at that company. I took the test and I failed it. They came in and took me off my inspection,” she said.

Crocker said that when cuts continued to surface in some O-rings, she was moved to a filing job and was asked to resign.

Dockstader said no employees were fired as a result of the investigations, but he would not say if any were disciplined.

Lax Security Claimed

Dockstader said security at the suburban Salt Lake City plant was strict, including employee badges for admission and escorts for visitors. But Crocker claimed security was lax and that anyone could walk into the plant.

FBI agent Cal Clegg said his agency was investigating the possibility of sabotage, but he declined to elaborate.

Inspector General Bill Colvin of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration also refused to discuss the agency’s investigation. But he said NASA officials believe that none of the damaged O-rings ever made it to Morton Thiokol and that their discovery would not affect shuttle launch plans.

The damaged rings were discovered by a HydraPak inspector, Dockstader said. Had the rings passed the company’s inspection, however, they still would have been examined by resident inspectors from Morton Thiokol and the federal Defense Contract Administration Service.