Plant worker pleads guilty in Chinook damage

[unhappycamper]

Plant worker pleads guilty in Chinook damage
The Associated Press
Posted : Friday Sep 12, 2008 13:07:29 EDT

PHILADELPHIA — A disgruntled worker at a Boeing plant said he cut electrical wires on a $24 million Chinook military helicopter because he was upset about a job transfer.

Matthew Montgomery, 33, of Trevose, pleaded guilty Thursday to one count of destroying property under contract to the government.

According to federal prosecutors, Montgomery was working his last shift on the Chinook assembly line May 10 when severed about 70 electrical wires running together from the cockpit to the main body of an H-47 Chinook. He had applied for several transfers to other Boeing facilities but was instead being moved to another job within the suburban Philadelphia plant, prosecutors said.

The damage he inflicted was spotted two days later by plant officials. The helicopter would not have been able to fly, prosecutors and his defense attorney said.

“There was no danger of this getting off the ground with the electrical wires being cut,” public defender Mara Meehan told the judge.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/09/ap_chinookdamage_091108/%2e