Letter to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld

January 30, 2002

The Honorable Donald Rumsfeld
Secretary
U.S. Department of Defense
The Pentagon
Washington, DC 20301                       

Dear Secretary Rumsfeld:

We write to request your support for including additional funding of $40 million to accelerate the replacement of the EA-6B wing center section inboard panels (WCSIP) in any FY 2002 defense supplemental appropriations request submitted to Congress.

As you know, on November 28, the Navy announced the urgent and immediate removal of eight EA-6Bs from flight status due to worse than anticipated fatigue damage and their potential for in-flight catastrophic failure of the wing.  Further, several more EA-6Bs were listed in critical condition.   It is not unreasonable to expect more groundings to occur in the near future -- even more severely impacting Prowler readiness.

The FY 2002 Defense Appropriation Act did provide funding for 10 additional WCSIP, which is consistent with the Navy program request submitted to Congress.  However, this request did not reflect the full extent of the wing fatigue problem, which had not surfaced by the time of the Navy submittal.  With existing tooling, the wing production and installation rate can be accelerated to 20 aircraft per year if $40M is included in the upcoming FY 2002 defense supplemental.  The rate of 20 aircraft a year would prevent an unacceptable number of “out of service” aircraft and improve the Navy’s ability to maintain Prowler readiness. 

We appreciate your attention to this matter and look forward to working with you to improve the operational readiness of the EA-6B Prowler.  If you have any questions or need additional information, please do not hesitate to contact us. 

Cordially,

Rep. Joseph R. Pitts
Rep. Mark Steven Kirk
Rep. Rick Larsen

Electronic Warfare Working Group

Congressman Joe Pitts, Founder and Chairman

420 Cannon House Office Building

Washington, DC 20515

202 225-2411 phone    202 225-2013 fax