Escondido Missile Parts Maker Reprimanded
An Escondido manufacturer has been reprimanded by the Department of Defense because of poorly made warhead casings that were intended to go inside Sparrow air-to-air missiles used by Air Force, Navy and NATO fighter jets.
ATI Industries--which is listed on the Escondido Chamber of Commerce roster as a “manufacturer of aircraft tools”--stopped making the casings late last year after inspectors said the company had systematic quality control problems, government officials told The Times.
ATI makes the casings that contain the explosives used by the Sparrow, Standard, Phoenix and Harm missiles. ATI does not handle the explosives themselves, which are loaded onto the missiles at Naval weapons stations where the missiles are ultimately assembled.
Federal quality assurance inspectors found problems only with the Sparrow casings, and said it was the first time the company has been cited in 10 years.
ATI has a $5.6-million contract to make warhead casings for the four types of missiles--including $1.6 million for the Sparrow explosive casings. The company was cited by the Department of Defense last November after the manufacturing flaws were detected by both ATI and government contract overseers, said Gay Maund, spokeswoman for the Defense Contract Administrative Service (DECAS), which manages Navy and Air Force contracts on behalf of the Department of Defense.
The casings were out-of-round and simply would not fit properly within the Sparrow missiles, said Denny Kline, spokesman for the Naval Air Systems Command, which serves as the weapons systems acquisition manager for naval aviation.
Additionally, Maund said a forward enclosure within the warhead casing was not coming out to specifications, apparently because interior plates warped during a welding process.
ATI was building the casings on behalf of the Navy which, in turn, distributed them to the Air Force and NATO customers.
Besides the flaw in the dimensions of the cylindrical casings and the problem with the warping, inspectors found deficient quality control documentation procedures at ATI.
Maund said the casings’ certifications--a paper trail that tracks anddocuments the construction of a particular warhead casing--”weren’t always legible, and sometimes appeared to have errors in them. We couldn’t read them. We couldn’t be sure what some of the (manufacturing) verifications were.”
At the time the problem was detected, the company already had delivered about 3,200 of the 4,420 casings it was contracted to make. It was unclear whether those casings met specifications or were pulled aside later by the Navy after delivery and final inspection. In any event, continued manufacturing of the casings was stopped last fall until ATI could correct the problem, Maund said.
She said it was unknown when the construction of the metal casings would resume.
The citation by the Department of Defense came in the form of a DECAS “Method C letter” requiring that an immediate, corrective plan of action be implemented. Method C notifications do not require a halt to the manufacturing, as would have the more serious Method D letter, but construction stopped anyway because the casings being built by ATI simply would not fit into the missiles, Kline said.
Officials at ATI deferred comment to their president, Warren Johnson, but Johnson was reported out of town on business and could not be reached for comment last week. ATI is a subsidiary of Snap-On Tools, which declined comment.
In addition to the warhead casing, the company makes tools that are used to manufacture aircraft. Company officials declined to provide information about its size or number of employees.
The Sparrow is staple armament aboard both American and NATO fighting aircraft, including the F-14 and F-18. It is a tactical, medium-range air-to-air missile that can reach speeds of 2,660 miles per hour to track down and destroy enemy aircraft more than 30 nautical miles away.
The 510-pound missile, 12 feet long and eight inches in diameter, seeks its target after it is first illuminated by the radar of the attack aircraft.
ATI and one other company provide the Navy with the warhead casings. Kline said the problem in Escondido has not affected the delivery of Sparrow missiles. “The pipeline is full of them already,” he said. “And there shouldn’t be a problem down the road because there is a second qualified source for them, should ATI back off.”
Kline said the warhead casing, in addition to containing the explosives, helps hold the missile’s guidance system to its controls. “Part of its job is in maintaining the structural integrity of the missile. The problem with the ATI process is that the casings were coming out out-of-round, and they literally can’t be installed in the missile. They won’t fit. There’s no danger of misusing it.”
Said Maund: “We’ve been dealing with them for over 10 years, and this is the first Method C they’ve received. We feel confident things will turn around. They’ve been very cooperative, and they’ve brought on more staff in their quality assurance area.”
A Pentagon official who asked not to be identified by name said about 100 government contractors and subcontractors around the country currently are operating under Method C letters.
