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The Air Forces $25 Billion Bomber Blunder
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of Time Magazine
Posted: September 6th, 2015
http://time.com/4010526/the-air-forces-25-billion-bomber-blu...
No one knows what the Air Forces top-secret new bomber will look like. But the service keeps saying it knows how much its going to cost. Thats what makes the Air Forces $25 billion price tag error so disconcerting. The problem began last year, when the service told Congress the yet-to-be-built Long-Range Strike Bomber would cost $33.1 billion between 2015 and 2025. It recently updated the estimate (from 2016 to 2026) to $58.4 billion - a hike of $25.3 billion, or 76%. But, the Air Force acknowledged last week, the latest cost estimate to develop and buy the aircraft over the coming decade is pegged at $41.7 billion. The pair of multi-billion-dollar snafus - $9 billion too low last year, $17 billion too high this year - is head-spinning. It leads to a simple question: is anyone minding the store? So what happened? It occurred in part because of human error, Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James said Monday. And in part because of process error, meaning a couple of our people got the figures wrong and the process of coordination was not fully carried out in this case. Those who erred have been counseled, James said. The key thing is there has been no change in those cost figures. In other words, that recent $41.7 billion estimate is rock solid, at least for now.
Note: Can "human error" also explain the $8.5 trillion that disappeared from the Pentagon since 1996 and much more?
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