Lockheed Martin to pay $2M in Marietta fuel dispute

Major order: South Korean military will purchase 40 F-35 fighters for about $6.8 billion, and a major part of the production will continue to be in Marietta.

Source: Staff research

Lockheed Martin Corp. has agreed to pay $2 million for allegedly failing to reimburse the federal government for fuel use at its Marietta plant that exceeded contractual limits, the government announced Friday.

The defense contractor would only acknowledge a settlement had been reached, and declined to go into details.

“Lockheed Martin has resolved the issues that led to this settlement and has no further details to add to those released by the U.S. Department of Justice,” spokeswoman Stephanie Stinn said in a statement to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Atlanta said that between 2006 and 2013 the government allotted Lockheed 22,000 gallons of fuel per C-130 plane the contractor was building for the Air Force.

Lockheed Martin was responsible picking up the cost of any fuel beyond that.

A government investigation found that Lockheed Martin “routinely used fuel in excess of the 22,000 gallons, but failed to reimburse the government for the excess,” according to a statement issued Friday by Acting U.S. Attorney John Horn in Atlanta.

The defense contractor was also accused of using fuel earmarked for test flights and other related fuel needs for the C-130 program for unrelated projects, including some that were not government related.

In addition to the C-130, the Marietta plant produces the center wing assembly for three versions of the F-35. The assembly is then then shipped to Fort Worth, Texas, where the plane’s production is completed. The Marietta plant also supplies the stealth coating on the fighter’s horizontal and vertical tails.

The plant also modernizes Air Force C-5 airlifters and builds wings for the P-3 Orion patrol aircraft.