This is beyond negligence. This is metal that was used to make our submarines. Metallurgist Elaine Thomas has confessed that she lied to the Navy about the metal she supplied to them. It was not up to their standards so she lied about test results and sold it to them anyway. It was only after a new metallurgist was hired to take her place that the lie was discovered.
“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,” the AP noted. “The tests were intended to show that the steel would not fail in a collision or in certain ‘wartime scenarios,’ the Justice Department said,” according to the outlet.
“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.”
“She suggested that in some cases she changed the tests to passing grades because she thought it was “stupid” that the Navy required the tests to be conducted at negative-100 degrees Fahrenheit ”
“Thomas faces up to 10 years in prison and a $1 million fine when she is sentenced in February. However, 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.”
It is perfectly fine to have your own opinions on things, but you can’t lie about your product when it affects national security. There must have been a reason that the Navy asked for the specific testing and she lied about it for decades.
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