Firm Accused of Selling Faulty Parts to Air Force

A Canoga Park aircraft parts manufacturer and two of its top executives have been accused by a federal grand jury in Oklahoma of selling counterfeit and defective parts to the Air Force.

An indictment alleges that Execuair Corp. fraudulently sold 56 valve actuators to the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center at Tinker Air Force Base in 1983, said Bill Price, U.S. attorney in Oklahoma City.

Sales manager David Manhan, 27, and the company each face one count of conspiracy to defraud the military, four counts of mail fraud and two counts of making false statements. Execuair President Larry Manhan, 51, David Manhan’s father, faces one conspiracy count and four mail fraud counts, Price said.

The indictment, handed down Thursday, says Execuair was awarded a $31,000 contract by the Air Force to manufacture the valve actuators, four-inch-long devices designed to cut off the flow of fuel in emergency situations to prevent explosions on C-141 jet transports

None of Parts Installed

“It’s a crucial part that plays a pivotal role when an aircraft comes into danger,” Air Force spokesman Bill George said. None of the defective valve actuators actually was installed in military airplanes, he said.

George said that, after extensive testing, the devices were found to be counterfeit. Price said the valve actuators were “poorly made copies” of a similar device made by Whittaker Controls, a North Hollywood aircraft parts manufacturer and frequent competitor of Execuair.

George said that Execuair is a frequent supplier of aircraft parts to the military and that military officials will be checking other parts manufactured by the company.

In Business 30 Years

Reached Friday at Execuair’s office in the 8700 block of Remmet Avenue, Larry Manhan said the company has been in business nearly 30 years and has been awarded hundreds of government contracts to manufacture products from surplus parts it purchases around the world.

Manhan said he believes that Whittaker Controls executives persuaded the Air Force and the grand jury to bring action against his company because “Whittaker doesn’t like the competition that we give them.

“We regularly fight them for the same sale, and we constantly undercut their price for the same stuff,” he said. “I don’t think we could be that bad and be in business for so long.”

Joe W. Stevens, president of Whittaker Controls, said the indictment against Execuair was “indicative of what we’ve heard and what we’ve observed for several years now.”

Whittaker has complained to Tinker Air Force Base about Execuair on several occasions, and Whittaker provided information about this particular case in response to a federal subpoena, Stevens said.

Whittaker Controls, with 325 employees, has been operating since 1942 as a division of Westwood-based Whittaker Corp., he said.

Regarding the Air Force’s claim that the valve actuators are defective, Manhan said: “If they don’t like them, they can return them. It’s that simple.”

Manhan said the Air Force told him last month that only seven of the 56 devices Execuair sold to the military did not work correctly.

Execuair has about 12 employees and annual sales of about $800,000, Manhan said.

If convicted, the father and son could be sentenced to a maximum of five years in federal prison on each count, Price said. Their trial has been scheduled for July 14 in U.S. District Court in Oklahoma City.