When I posted recently about fakes and forgeries and my shock that United Airlines had discovered counterfeit parts in aircraft engines, one commenter pointed out that there is a long history of fraudulent parts in the airline industry. (A friend in the trade would tell him about “fake brake liners in authentic looking boxes”) Well, that’s even more terrifying.

But to get an idea of the scale of where things are at right now, it’s worth reading this Bloomberg story about “how fake parts infiltrated airline fleets”:

It was all a charade. The obscure distributor hoodwinked the biggest names in aviation, selling thousands of jet-engine parts with forged airworthiness records, according to regulators and industry executives. In some cases, AOG allegedly sold refurbished used parts with paperwork claiming they were brand-new, potentially netting huge profits in the process.

Great walkthrough of the issues, the players, the reasons, and the consequences.