Government Contract Was Reportedly Negotiated Between FAA Employee And Raytheon Executive Who Were Intimately Involved

A researcher at Georgia State University says that operational errors among air traffic controllers between December 2008 and October 2010 have risen some 3,300 percent when compared to January 2007 and November 2008. And, he says, the most likely cause for that dramatic increase is a contract for training awarded to Raytheon worth nearly $1 billion.

Complicating the matter, Professor Jack Williams says, is that the FAA official in charge of negotiating the contract and the Raytheon executive with whom she made the deal, himself a former FAA employee, were involved in a romantic affair while the program was being put together.

An enterprise report appearing in The Daily Caller, published in Washington, D.C., indicates that the relationship between Charlie Keegan, who had been the FAA's vice president of Operations Planning Services before leaving to take the high-ranking position with Raytheon, and Maureen Knopes, who had been placed in charge of re-structuring the long-standing system of training air traffic controllers, was well known, and they eventually married in August 2007.

In June of 2006, the FAA announced that it was changing the way bidding was done for the Air Traffic Control Optimum Training Solutions program. The new rules, devised by Knopes and her staff, disallowed smaller contractors like Washington Consulting Group, who had held the contract for two decades, from bidding on their own. The smaller company teamed up with Lockheed Martin in an effort to win the businesses. But the rules changed again in 2007 in a way that precluded Washington Consulting Group from bidding for the contract, and which eliminated Lockheed Martin as well. That left Raytheon with a clear path to win the nearly $1 billion contract.

The smaller company sued Raytheon when it learned of the romantic involvement between Keegan and Knopes and their ensuing marriage, as well as the spike in controller errors. An attorney for the company told the paper that he beleives the bidding was not conducted fairly. Raytheon has dismissed the suit as "frivoulous and irresponsible."

The FAA is also dismissive of the charges, but will not specifically discuss the pending litigation. A spokesperson said that the dramatic rise in reported errors stems largely from a self-reporting system that allows controllers to anonymously own up to their mistakes.

 FMI: www.faa.gov