The Fraud Case That Claimed Rolls-Royce Used Scrap To Build Engines Powering The B-52, Global Hawk, & MQ-25

A U.S. judge in Indianapolis allowed two former Rolls-Royce employees—quality control staff—to pursue fraud claims that the company knowingly built aircraft engines using scrap parts and defective materials. The whistleblowers alleged that roughly 180 engines delivered for U.S. military aircraft skipped critical safety tests and bypassed quality checks to cut costs and speed production. The engines, they say, were fitted across platforms including the Lockheed Martin P-3 Orion, C-130 Hercules, Northrop Grumman E-2 Hawkeye and the Bell V-22 Osprey. The lawsuit was filed in 2008 as U.S. ex rel. Thomas McArtor v. Rolls-Royce, and survived an initial motion to dismiss in 2012. The case appears to have been settled out of court; later, Rolls-Royce agreed to pay more than $800 million to defer prosecution in an international bribery case.