On June 18, 1967, the B. F. Goodrich Wheel and Brake Plant in Troy, Ohio, received a contract to supply wheels and brakes for the new Air Force light attack aircraft. Following brake failure at the June, 1968 flight tests, and the ensuing accusations by a former B. F. Goodrich employee, Kermit Vandivier, regarding qualification test report falsification and ethical misconduct on the part of specific B. F. Goodrich personnel, Senator William Proxmire (D-Wisconsin) requested a governmental inquiry into the brake qualification testing performed by the B. F. Goodrich, Troy Plant.
On August 13, 1969, Senator Proxmire chaired a four-hour Congressional hearing, to investigate the Air Force A7D Aircraft Brake Problem. In 1972, Vandivier wrote a well-crafted article, "Why Should My Conscience Bother Me," which gave his version of the Goodrich incident.
As one of the most famous whistleblowing cases in the literature, The Aircraft Brake Scandal has been hailed as a paradigm case of the courageous individual challenging an unscrupulous corporation. Whistleblower Vandivier is treated as a hero, a man who lost his job for doing the right thing.
The case shows how engineers can be responsible for failed innovation, how easy it is for events to escalate (in this case, to a formal Congressional hearing) when people fail to communicate and get their facts straight, and how innovative design often makes testing procedures obsolete, or worse yet, shows that they were in fact erroneous.
The case is particularly well suited for design, materials, and professionalism courses.
B.F.Goodrich Air Force A7D Brake Problem Case (opens in new window) maintained by the Texas A&M University.
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