Safety issues rise in MS air crash

Glenn Schwarz. a Navy civilian aeronautical-engineering technician whistleblower, who uncovered significant fueling risks to pilots based out of Cherry Point, N.C., was raising new safety issues before civilian managers fired him in June. He claims those civilian managers put him in a highly technical job calibrating equipment used for testing weapons systems and equipment that support aircraft for which he had no training or knowledge to perform. He also asserted on-the-job training managers were not complying with Navy regulations at the Metrology and Calibration laboratory and across Fleet Readiness Center-East (FRC-E). Safety concerns are rampant across military communities in the days since a Marine Corps KC-130T crashed in Leflore County, Miss., last week killing 15 Marines and a Navy corpsman. The KC-130T was coming from the Marine Corps Station Cherry Point, the same location of the FRC-E maintenance and refueling issues of Schwarz’s initial substantiated safety disclosures. Marine officials have only said that the KC-130T "experienced a mishap" in air, but have not provided any additional details as to whether maintenance problems or pilot-error may have been the cause. The investigation is on-going. A 2015 Navy Inspector General report substantiated many of Schwarz's complaints. The report found that fuel hoses and the gauges on fuel trucks had not been tested in years, creating the possibility that contaminants could enter the fuel and pass the aircraft’s filtering systems, leading to potentially life-threatening engine performance issues and deadly fire risks on the ground. The IG report was sent to then-President Obama and the Senate and House Armed Services Committees. The audit recommended more than a dozen steps to bring the FRC-E into compliance with Navy rules. (Source: Washington Free Beacon 07/17/17)