Government Raids Sylmar Jet Engine Parts Firm

A jet engine parts company in Sylmar was raided late last month by units of the Defense Department and the FBI as part of a federal investigation into allegedly substandard parts the company sold that may have ended up in both military and commercial aircraft.

The investigation into McHaffie, Inc. was confirmed by Rodney Hansen, special agent in charge of the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, or DCIS, in Los Angeles, which is operated by the Department of Defense’s inspector general.

Hansen declined to comment further on the investigation.

No charges have been filed against McHaffie, Inc.

Norman McHaffie, president of the parts company, denied that his company was under investigation.

But General Electric Aircraft Engines in Evendale, Ohio, confirmed that several weeks ago the DCIS told G.E. that it was investigating McHaffie, which supplies G.E. with fasteners for jet engines, said G.E. spokesman Dave Lane.

“Upon learning of alleged irregularities regarding testing of fasteners by McHaffie,” Lane said in a prepared statement, G.E. set up its own quality task force to review “the McHaffie fasteners in engines produced and under production” at two G.E. aircraft engine plants.

Lane said that G.E. “thus far has not identified any engine safety concerns with McHaffie-supplied fasteners in field or test engines produced at G.E.”

Technical Presentations

Besides testing its equipment, Lane said, G.E. made “technical presentations to our customers, including the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Navy and the FAA.”

Fasteners are bolts that help hold the various parts of an engine together.

One customer G.E. alerted was Boeing Co., which looked through its G.E. engines with McHaffie fasteners. “We have found no anomalies,” said Jack Gamble, spokesman for Boeing Commercial Airplanes.

Among the engines G.E. produces at its Evendale plant are two models that are used in several Boeing aircraft. One engine model is used in some Boeing 767 and 747 planes, while another engine, which G.E. jointly produces with a French company, is used exclusively in the Boeing 737 series.

Various federal agencies, including the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Defense Department and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, have been conducting a nationwide probe into companies suspected of selling faulty or counterfeit parts.

At least a half dozen local parts companies have been investigated by the federal government, including Lee Aerospace Products, a Simi Valley firm. Last week a federal grand jury indicted the company and its two top executives and charged them with selling defective and substandard bolts that were ultimately installed in the space shuttle Discovery.