Washington scientist admits faking steel-test
results for Navy submarines
Associated Press,
by
Staff
Original Article
Posted By: Ribicon,
11/8/2021 11:40:37 PM
Tacoma, Wash.—A metallurgist in Washington state pleaded guilty to fraud Monday after she spent decades faking the results of strength tests on steel that was being used to make U.S. Navy submarines.
Elaine Marie Thomas, 67, of Auburn, Washington, was the director of metallurgy at a foundry in Tacoma that supplied steel castings used by Navy contractors Electric Boat and Newport News Shipbuilding to make submarine hulls. From 1985 through 2017, Thomas falsified the results of strength and toughness tests for at least 240 productions of steel—about half the steel the foundry produced for the Navy, according to her plea agreement, filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Tacoma.
10 years? This demands the rope.
96 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
Trigger2 11/8/2021 11:49:58 PM (No. 971857)
One thing for sure...she must be a demonrat socialist or outright communist. Ergo, only the 10 years when she should be hung by the yardarm.
75 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
Strike3 11/9/2021 12:05:31 AM (No. 971871)
Nothing less than attempted murder. Yes, it was stupid of the Navy to require a sub's metal to be tested for what would be very solid ice, unless water that deep and that cold does not freeze solid, not on this planet anyway. There was a far better way to solve this than by falsifying records for 32 years like making a phone call to ask why.
42 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
itsonlyme 11/9/2021 12:11:33 AM (No. 971876)
Foundry -
Bradken Inc.
23 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
DVC 11/9/2021 12:16:29 AM (No. 971881)
Yep, get a rope.
41 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
KTWO 11/9/2021 1:03:09 AM (No. 971905)
I wish the article was more specific about the tests. A -100 F spec doesn't seem necessary. But I'm certainly not qualified to decide; there may be very sound reasons for it.
A max of 10 years does seem light. And her actual sentence may be less. Will she be out by 2025? Does she keep her pension?
33 people like this.
Kealhaul her! Minimum!
22 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
DVC 11/9/2021 2:16:53 AM (No. 971932)
#6. Steel can become very brittle in cold, and it gets cold under water. Brittle steels can literally shatter like glass when stressed. Special alloying materials and treatment methods are required to ensure that steel is not brittle.
In fact, this brittle-when-cold behavior was discovered to be a contributory cause in the sinking of the Titanic. In those days, the steamship builders had specified the 'finest steel available'.....which was, by today's standards, pretty abysmally bad stuff. Too many impurities, IIRC sulfur and phosphorus, meant that instead of bending when they just barely scraped the iceberg.....the hull plates shattered, opening a huge rent in the hull, dooming the ship.
Now....imagine you are driving a submarine around in the Arctic, and relatively blind because you can't use active sonar without giving away your position for dozens of miles in all directions, and you might bump an ice floe. You can survive a dent, but not a brittle shattered hole.
That is why the test at -100F. Maybe they only see -40F or -60F when doing 'surface in the Arctic' missions, which they actually do accomplish, but there needs to be substantial margins on all of this stuff.
She needs to at MINIMUM die in a cell block.
Better would be execution, as the French say "pour encourager les autres", or "to encourage the others".....NOT to fake their testing.
75 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
BarryNo 11/9/2021 5:25:32 AM (No. 971972)
Deserves the Death Penalty. Trillions of dollars in damages, and all our soldiers lives at risk?
Only a life may atone. Also the lives of whoever bribed her to do this!
44 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
FleetUSA 11/9/2021 5:37:17 AM (No. 971977)
How about 10 x 240?
13 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
HPmatt 11/9/2021 5:55:13 AM (No. 971982)
So let me get this straight, the US Navy has spent whatever it costs for the US Submarine program….say 5% of US defense spending, $300B - $15B a year, $480 Billion…..all was reliant on ONE PERSON testing metal test results….and the US Navy did not have REDUNDANT and/or INDEPENDENT verification? Jeez, back in college my summer job was to collect concrete material samples for strength tests in refinery refractory linings….and I got into alls sorts of trouble when I was sampling the material incorrectly - turns out my technique was at fault, not the material strength, but the company did have to tearout some areas that did not meet strength tests, regardless. The company is still in business….started in the California gold rush repairing boilers on steamships….good engineers in 6th generation…paying attention to their business.
40 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
Rinktum 11/9/2021 6:11:00 AM (No. 971988)
Maybe we are naive to believe that professionals who are critical to our safety actually possess integrity. Just thinking about all the physicians and scientists who have bought into the left’s lies concerning Covid comes to mind. I had not even thought of these kinds of professions. Yikes! There is a reason making examples of people who put people at risk in whatever their profession is makes a whole lot of sense. There must be severe consequences when lives are at stake in the course of your job when something is not right. Seems to me this is an excellent opportunity to use this as a warning for anyone else who considers cutting corners. Ten years in prison is simply not sufficient punishment for this crime.
41 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
Skinnydip 11/9/2021 6:33:20 AM (No. 971996)
Low bidder probably. Typical government contract.
15 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
Toby Ten Bears 11/9/2021 6:34:02 AM (No. 971997)
Hold on... Remember what the Navy has become... No great loss.
9 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
Bur Oak 11/9/2021 7:17:10 AM (No. 972014)
There is more wrong here than a single person faking tests. These tests should have been done by an outside lab. Additionally, the Navy should have been overseeing the quality control programs at all suppliers and sub-supplies of critical parts.
28 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
downnout 11/9/2021 7:31:30 AM (No. 972028)
Make her walk the plank…
10 people like this.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
privateer 11/9/2021 7:34:03 AM (No. 972029)
Isn't deliberately weakening our capabilities to attack or resist an enemy 'giving aid and comfort to the enemy'? Even if that enemy never knew it. That's treason, and not rewarded with some 4 or 5 year stay at a minimum security Gray Bar Sandals resort.
20 people like this.
Reply 18 - Posted by:
Namma 11/9/2021 7:49:38 AM (No. 972043)
Hard to believe that only one person worked in the metallurgical lab for tinsel strength testing. Did this women type the affidavits that listed the test results. She is a traitor and should be out in prison for attempted murder
15 people like this.
Reply 19 - Posted by:
RussZilla 11/9/2021 7:54:06 AM (No. 972046)
Jail her!
7 people like this.
Reply 20 - Posted by:
hisself 11/9/2021 8:05:42 AM (No. 972052)
Shouldn't that be Treason?
14 people like this.
Reply 21 - Posted by:
24tea@Mag 11/9/2021 8:24:40 AM (No. 972068)
Another lying liberal. Need we say more.
11 people like this.
Reply 22 - Posted by:
lftrn97 11/9/2021 8:31:47 AM (No. 972081)
#11 wins best comment and I'll go for a top 10 with "who were the federal politicians during her reign of error and did she fund them?"
12 people like this.
Reply 23 - Posted by:
Rumblehog 11/9/2021 8:40:36 AM (No. 972087)
What would the Greatest Generation have done in such a case in WWII, or the Cold War?
Ethel and Julius Rosenberg are unavailable for comment.
16 people like this.
Reply 24 - Posted by:
Redwing57 11/9/2021 8:54:27 AM (No. 972098)
Foundries may cheat, it only takes the willingness to do so.
I had a summer job at a foundry making parts with brass alloys. They used a lot of recycled materials in their furnaces, but the product was supposed to be adjusted for the right metal ratios. Customers could ask for "test buttons", little pucks of metal for their own tests. Fine, the foundry would send them. BUT, the foundry would make a "run" of test buttons when they happened to get a heat that was right on, and ship those out whenever somebody wanted one. What was actually made day-to-day was all over the place.
So, the customers would receive a small sample to "confirm" their metallurgy was good. Sure, that's a fraudulent practice, but it would take some major effort to catch this practice. I was very young at the time, but even then it was clear to me this was wrong!
14 people like this.
Reply 25 - Posted by:
Strike3 11/9/2021 8:58:01 AM (No. 972102)
Thanks, #8, that's exactly the explanation I was looking for. Won't the Navy have to dock all of those boats for testing or will they let a few implode first? I spent four years in the USN but I was a communications Landlubber.
8 people like this.
It's treason, and she should spend the rest of her life behind bars. Just like Snowden, if we ever catch him.
6 people like this.
Reply 27 - Posted by:
Clinger 11/9/2021 9:21:14 AM (No. 972122)
I have no intention suggesting she be let off the hook but there is another side to this. I have been primarily in defense aerospace for over 40 years in engineering, R&D including metallurgical testing, elemental analysis, program management, operations and general management including responsibility for quality.
I do not believe that this temperature spec falls into the category I am about to describe but I'm going to try to help with an understanding the culture from which we get people making critical decisions on their own regarding what is and isn't critical. And that should bother you.
The government loves to require specs that are impossible to achieve. The best liar often wins the contract. On numerous occasions I have been told that we don't know how to run our business due to defect rates by "Engineers" right out of school who have never been dirty above the waist. Once I has a particularly aggressive young lady insist so with great zeal. I demonstrated to her that the process capability was about half as tight as required to meet the print and that without master craftmanship we'd be no where near our .2% defect rate on attributes. With 1400 verified attributes that's 2.8 defects per "part" or a 100% defect rate therefore we didn't know what we were doing. I challenged her to identify any machine tool on planet earth that has better capabilities that what we were using, and if she could do so we'd buy it. It doesn't exist.
The tin horn weenies love power and there's no power in reasonable specifications. There is power in guaranteeing failure then doling out leniency. Prime contracting engineers and government engineers / inspectors relish in that power trip. I would love to tell you some stories about what you pay for. Trust me, $500 for a toilet seat is a steal. I wonder what the ID tolerance and roundness spec was on said seat.
There are critical defense items in the service today that I can say with no hesitation that have components in them for which there has never been a single part that isn't "defective."
This leaves us to play a cat and mouse game deciding when the wink wink nod nod game is a necessary evil and when we need to pay absolutely by the written rules.
I'm still subject to punishment for deaths caused by a competitor who lied better than me and killed people with defective steel processing. You see when I lost the contract on price I was supposed to figure out that there is no way they could make it for that price and still process it without defects that matter, microcracks in this case. Rather than assume that they were buying the business at a loss I was supposed to hand them the proprietary secret sauce to prevent them from effing up and killing people.
As a side note, I'm currently not in that trap the government people I work most with now are fantastic honorable partners in serving the warfighter. I do not share that opinion regarding all of their leadership.
12 people like this.
Reply 28 - Posted by:
bigfatslob 11/9/2021 9:21:20 AM (No. 972123)
Biden's four star Navy Admiral won't know the difference anyway. My concern is more than the brittleness of the steel as the strength at maximum depth resulting in implosion. We are not talking about railroad cars here it's about Navy submarine vessels. This person along with others who knew need to be held accountable and put into a jail cell for a long time.
7 people like this.
Reply 29 - Posted by:
Zigrid 11/9/2021 9:31:32 AM (No. 972132)
Well...well...and was she given the job because she was qualified...or just because the woke left wanted a woman at the helm....WE must recognize that NOT all woman are qualified just because they are women... the best man/woman for the job is the most important qualification...in all matters...as WE have proof with our demented Mr. Magoo....and with obama at the helm giving instructions via ear piece to biden ...WE are in for some tough years...but take heart...the truth shall set US free...
8 people like this.
Reply 30 - Posted by:
AltaD 11/9/2021 9:43:16 AM (No. 972145)
FTA: the Justice Department said it would recommend a prison term at the low end of whatever the court determines is the standard sentencing range in her case.
What?! Whose side are they on?
12 people like this.
Reply 31 - Posted by:
TurtleDove 11/9/2021 9:48:39 AM (No. 972155)
“Ms. Thomas never intended (!) to compromise the integrity of any material and is gratified that the government’s testing does not suggest that the structural integrity of any submarine was in fact compromised,” Carpenter wrote. “This offense is unique in that it was neither motivated by greed nor any desire for personal enrichment. " SO WHAT, WAS IT JUST PURE OUT & OUT LAZINESS?
9 people like this.
Reply 32 - Posted by:
Trapper 11/9/2021 9:55:38 AM (No. 972165)
Look for her picture. I found it. I wonder if they will make a movie about HER. Maybe call it "Fake Figures"?
5 people like this.
Reply 33 - Posted by:
hershey 11/9/2021 10:01:14 AM (No. 972171)
No rope, no jail, tie her to a piece of steel with a chain and drop her in the ocean...and why was there only ONE person certifying this steel?
4 people like this.
Given her current age, a decade in prison could be a life sentence for her.
3 people like this.
Reply 35 - Posted by:
paral04 11/9/2021 10:14:07 AM (No. 972190)
It would be interesting to know if she were told to do this and they are letting her out to dry. At any rate though, she has her own mind and could say no. Very bad for her.
1 person likes this.
OK, before everybody condemns this person, remember:
1) Math and science are now seen to be social constructs, and insisting on one right answer is probably racist and non-inclusionary.
2) Where is the transgender community representation in this testing process?
3) Weren't these testing requirements mandated by the Navy before it celebrated "pride" day, and how valid can these requirements be without all the talented LGBTQ engineers being part of it?
4) Shouldn't we be more concerned on the impact of these submarines on "climate change"? - let's not take our eyes off the correct ball here.
4 people like this.
Reply 37 - Posted by:
skacmar 11/9/2021 10:22:07 AM (No. 972202)
Send her to the bottom of the ocean in one these submarines in the Arctic or Antarctic or while maneuvering through an ice field. Maybe to the bottom of some deep ocean trench. Lets see how she feels about fake steel test results then. The fake test results could have resulted in a submarine imploding at depth and nobody would every have known why.
2 people like this.
Reply 38 - Posted by:
AIRFORCE1 11/9/2021 11:39:36 AM (No. 972300)
Putting our sailors at risk by her shear incompetency she deserves more than 10 years.
2 people like this.
Reply 39 - Posted by:
Starboard_side 11/9/2021 11:53:49 AM (No. 972315)
Wait, so from 1985 thru 2017, or 32 years, she did this, which is essentially her entire career.
I would hope she would not retain her pension and benefits she earned during this time since it was all predicated on her connection to this U.S. contract, but using fake tests.
2 people like this.
Reply 40 - Posted by:
sherlock1 11/9/2021 12:15:47 PM (No. 972342)
Let's Go Bradken!
2 people like this.
Reply 41 - Posted by:
Kumoan 11/9/2021 2:01:36 PM (No. 972466)
Look at it from the demorat perspective: being a submariner is not a sissy job, therefor the loss of life when a sub mysteriously disappears is likely to cause the loss of a lot more patriotic conservative lives than commie lives.
Same scam as they pulled off bugging out of Afghanistan.
1 person likes this.
Reply 42 - Posted by:
Tet Vet 68 11/9/2021 7:34:44 PM (No. 972726)
Which submarines? They need to be identified first. What depth limitations as a result. This obviously would be classified information from our enemies
1 person likes this.
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Hold on a minute, sailor. She maximized value for the company's shareholders; shouldn't that count for something? Evidently it counts for a whole lot, as the maximum allowable prison term is 10 years, but the Just-Us department says it will request the minimum sentence, since undermining our military to help potential enemies is among the USA's top priorities. That, and corporate profits. China or Russia would have dealt with this person summarily, but not us!