As a former Dir of Quality in the Defense Industry this raises the question how this went so long and not detected? We are all audited by outside auditors. And usually outside auditors have an uncanny ability to zero in on quality system issues. Painfully I might add. Also, how no one in this company didn't suspect anything is also troublesome. 1st Article Inspections would have exposed this cheating. I suspect there is as usual more to this story. Companies I've worked for have made it very clear, you break the rules and cheat, don't expect the company to defend you. Pressure to ship is huge, but you don't cheat, you don't look the other way when others cheat.