Persian Gulf destroyer 3000 psi air system failure

A destroyer in the Persian Gulf lost its 3,000 psi air system mid-attack; root cause was stress corrosion cracking in a brass valve made of the wrong alloy. Discovered at the Naval Supply Center in Philadelphia that twenty-some percent of brass valves in inventory were the wrong alloy. Two students in the same cohort had worked on different parts of the failure.

One year after the Second Gulf War — which only lasted two or three days — there was a destroyer in the Persian Gulf that was part of the attack. All of a sudden their 3,000 psi air system went out, and if you lose your 3,000 psi air system, not much else works. They had to come offline in the middle of the attack. People in the Pentagon were not happy. It turned out to be a stress corrosion cracking problem in a brass valve that blew. One student who had been on board that ship gave his presentation on that experience. Another student in the same class, they didn't know that both of them had worked on different parts of this — the other student had been in the Naval Supply Center in Philadelphia, and after this occurred they had to study everything in inventory, because the brass alloy was the wrong alloy. They found about twenty-some percent of all the brass valves in the Supply Center were the wrong brass alloy. Both of them were working on different parts of the same problem.