Boeing Co. outsourced work on Air Force One aircraft at Port San Antonio to a financially insolvent shell company owned by a foreign government, raising troubling national security questions, a whistleblower alleges in a court filing.
Subcontractor GDC Technics, which was 80 percent owned by the Saudi Arabian government, ultimately didn’t complete interior modifications to the aircraft because of a dispute with Boeing. As a result, the aerospace giant reportedly wants a 12-month delay in the jets’ delivery and $500 million in additional taxpayer funds to cover cost overruns.
The whistleblower also alleges the Saudi government diverted funds earmarked for the Air Force One projects to complete two of its own Boeing 787-8 aircraft before it “forfeited and abandoned all interests in GDC” in 2019.
The whistleblower, Ahmed Bashir, a Pakistani-born owner of a now-defunct aircraft modification company in Wichita, Kan., made the allegations in an Oct. 27 court filing in GDC’s San Antonio bankruptcy case.
GDC filed for reorganization April 26 after Boeing dropped it from the Air Force One contracts.
On ExpressNews.com: Dispute over work on Air Force One causes 56 to be laid off in San Antonio
Bashir has submitted a $312 million claim in GDC’s bankruptcy, an amount he describes in his filing as an “estimation of the bill footed by the United States taxpayers as a result of Boeing and GDC’s fraud.” He filed the document on behalf of taxpayers in response to GDC’s objection to the...
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