WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Almost a quarter of the aircraft belonging to the US Marine Corps are grounded because spare parts for them are not immediately available, Assistant Deputy Commandant for Aviation and Sustainment William Taylor said in a congressional testimony on Wednesday.
"We've got 23 percent of our aircraft down due to a lack of one or multiple spare parts needed for each aircraft," Taylor told the US House of Representatives Armed Services Readiness subcommittee. "In some cases, you pull a panel off an F/A —18 and what you see inside is rust and corrosion."
Taylor noted that the Marine Corps had to turn to the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group's Boneyard in the US state of Arizona to cannibalize F/A-18 spare parts.
However, the Marines as well as the Navy had retired 30 of the aircraft over a ten-year period and stored them in the Boneyard just for such an occasion.
