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Northrop pays $5M to settle B-2 paint problems
The Associated Press
Wednesday, December 8, 2010; 8:47 PM
LOS ANGELES -- Northrop Grumman Corp. has agreed to pay more than $5 million to settle allegations that it misled the Air Force about tests on a paint system it developed for the B-2 stealth bomber.
The U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles said in a statement Wednesday that Northrop agreed to pay the federal government $5.21 million with no acknowledgment of any wrongdoing.
The statement says the company developed the Advanced Topcoat System for the B-2 from 1998 to 2002, and found cohesion problems during testing that it allegedly failed to fully disclose.
The paint was applied to two bombers, but during a test of one of them in July 2002, parts of the topcoat peeled off and the original paint had to be reapplied to both.
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