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An Air Force investigation of a fatal fighter jet crash in 2020 quietly discovered that key components of the pilot's ejection seat may have been counterfeit, Air Force Times has learned.
While the Air Force suspected parts of the seat were counterfeit, it buried the information in a nonpublic section of its accident investigation report.
Those details have come to light in a federal civil lawsuit filed by Schmitz's widow, Valerie, who is suing three defense companies for negligence and misleading the Air Force about the safety of their products.
"What the military does is inherently dangerous to begin with," plaintiff attorney Jim Brauchle said Tuesday. "If you're going to be engaging in that kind of activity, you want to be doing it with equipment that's going to work."
The case in U.S. District Court in South Carolina targets F-16 manufacturer Lockheed Martin; Collins Aerospace, which builds the ACES II ejection seat installed on planes across the Air Force; and multiple business units of Teledyne Technologies, which makes the seat's digital recovery sequencer.
While the Air Force suspected parts of the seat were counterfeit, it buried the information in a nonpublic section of its accident investigation report.
Those details have come to light in a federal civil lawsuit filed by Schmitz's widow, Valerie, who is suing three defense companies for negligence and misleading the Air Force about the safety of their products.
"What the military does is inherently dangerous to begin with," plaintiff attorney Jim Brauchle said Tuesday. "If you're going to be engaging in that kind of activity, you want to be doing it with equipment that's going to work."
The case in U.S. District Court in South Carolina targets F-16 manufacturer Lockheed Martin; Collins Aerospace, which builds the ACES II ejection seat installed on planes across the Air Force; and multiple business units of Teledyne Technologies, which makes the seat's digital recovery sequencer.
F-16 Pilot Died Because His Ejection Seat May Have Been Counterfeit | ZeroHedge
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