In Spain there are more than one hundreds of aircraft military and support that depend daily on a highly specialized supply chain, one where each part, each support and each auxiliary structure must meet millimetric technical standards. In this context, public contracts not only they move millions of eurosbut rather they support an industrial architecture designed to leave no room for error.
Against all logic. They told the story this week in Moncloa. In essence, someone is going to have to explain themselves at the Ministry of Defense after reviewing the contracting records. The reason? A motorcycle shop in Spain was supplying material for the Eurofighter and the CL-215T and CL-415after winning a case at the Albacete Air Base against an industrial manufacturer specialized in aeronautical structures by just 1,405 euros difference, 3.8% less.
Apparently, the contract was neither minor nor trivial, it involved mobile ladders with a platform designed to adjust millimeters to the fuselage of fighters and firefighting aircraft, manufactured with high resistance alloys and floors prepared to withstand corrosive hydraulic liquids. We are talking about equipment that is part of the critical technical ecosystem of an air base and that hardly fits with the known capacity of a micro-enterprise dedicated until recently to the sale of motorcycle accessories.
The file under suspicion. They said in the media that the award managed by the Head of the Economic-Administrative Section 23 It is not only surprising due to the profile of the successful bidder, but also due to the context in which it occurred, with other bidders excluded due to “severe technical failures” while the documentation presented by the store was impeccable.
Precisely, this combination has raised suspicions about “possible reckless casualties”, privileged information or even a document that was formally fulfilled but not necessarily in the structural quality required in a military environment, opening all kinds of questions and doubts about how a company with no known manufacturing capacity could compete on price. with an industrial plant specialized in composite materials and fiber.
La Maestranza in the focus. Furthermore, the irregularities indicated are not limited to a specific contract. The complaints indicate that the Albacete Air Training it would have been used for work allegedly linked to private interestsincluding the development of firefighting aircraft for a foreign firm with public resources, civilian personnel working during business hours for third parties, and the use of state workshops and tools for purposes unrelated to the service.
Added to this are reports on the transfer of parts manufactured in official facilities to private tents in private vehicles, which, if this is the case, paints a scenario of possible internal lack of control and diversion of public assets.
A pattern that compromises security. Finally, the media added that the second file under scrutiny, the one relating to the supply of plane supports for the CL215T and CL415, reinforces the feeling of pattern having also been awarded to the same company for 26,922 euros in an open procedure that was attended only by… one offer.
Once again, we are talking about very sensitive ground support material whose reliability directly affects flight safety, and whose total absence of competition in such a specific sector raises at least questions about the transparency and fairness of the process.
Beyond the anecdote, the case questions control mechanisms in Defense contracting and leaves a clearly inevitable conclusion: when the critical supply for military aircraft ends up in the hands of a motorcycle shop, it seems that not only the logic of the market is at stake, but the very credibility and security of the system in Spain.
Image | Air and Space Army Ministry of Defense Spain
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