Kaydon bearing conformity failure and helicopter crashes

The most fully developed version of this case in the corpus. Two U.S. test pilots killed during a two-hour acceptance hover; subsequent Cherry Point near-crash; fleet grounding; FBI takeover under the Emergency Powers Act; perfect new bearings still failing within two months; Tom's forensic discovery that 188 of 192 brinelling marks are ellipses (open conformity), not hourglasses (closed conformity); the potato-chipped aluminum swashplate as actual cause; the helicopter manufacturer's destruction of the milling machine and sibling swashplates; the new CEO's decision to settle anyway for $15M to clear his watch.

[Tom shows a photograph of the swashplate assembly.] Here's the swashplate. It's a very complex assembly. This is one of the linkages, there's another linkage. When the swashplate tilts — this is either collective or cyclic — there's a bearing inside here. The bearing failed, and it failed on an aircraft that was on its initial two-hour flight. It had just been built, it hadn't been turned over. There was no DD-251 form — that's the standard form that transfers ownership from the contractor to the government. A one-page form, so you have a point in time of who owns that helicopter.

They usually get partnership. I told you about the bearing manufacturer who put their own attorney on because the Navy didn't want to participate and they wouldn't let any of the other manufacturers participate. Chemical Safety Board doesn't have enough people. There are only like 20 investigators for the entire country. Every time you have anything that causes a death in a refinery or something like that, they almost have to go in and investigate. They don't have enough investigators. They'll put one guy on a huge thing, maybe two guys. So they're looking for all the help they can get from anybody anywhere. You have to follow their rules, but they're looking for all the help they can get from various suppliers. They basically become sort of a sifting organization, sifting all the information. There's interesting politics among the different participants. They want to participate because they don't want to get sued, or have the cause be determined that they were the cause.

The Stratford crash, the closed-vs-open conformity hypothesis, Tom's forensic insight (barrel-shaped wear marks prove the conformity was correct), the discovery that the aluminum swash plate housing was potato-chipped because the helicopter company had scrapped its three-year-old milling machine, the FBI takeover of bearing QC, and the new bearing-company president settling for $15M to avoid taking the blame.