STRIKERS SAY FILL-INS WORKED ON CRASHED JET

ST. LOUIS -- Striking McDonnell Douglas Corp. machinists say the jet fighter that crashed in Bethalto, Ill., this week had undergone major repairs by fill-in workers. But the company said there was no connection between the crash and the strike.

The Navy and McDonnell Douglas are investigating the Wednesday afternoon crash of one of the company's F/A-18C Hornets into a subdivision in Bethalto, about 24 miles northeast of St. Louis.

McDonnell Douglas test pilot Jeffrey J. Crutchfield, 44, of St. Charles, was killed. Crutchfield had been taking the plane through aerial maneuvers in preparation for an air show in Europe next week.

The cause of the crash may not be determined for several weeks. Machinists stopped short of blaming replacement employees, but one machinist who worked on the downed jet said fill-ins are not qualified for such complex work.

"Let me put it this way: If you can read a maintenance book, can you take your VCR apart and put it back together?" flight mechanic Darryl Scott asked Friday. "It's complex work. It's not a job to be taken lightly."

McDonnell Douglas officials angrily denied any connection between the strike and the crash.

"The fact is we don't know what happened, and any speculation at this point is pure conjecture," company President Herb Lanese said Friday.

"There were no problems with that plane," company spokesman Tom Williams said. "We find it reprehensible that they would use the death of a teammate to advance their issues in a labor dispute."

White-collar company employees have been on the assembly line since June 5, when 6,700 machinists walked off the job over concerns about job security. Some temporary replacement workers have also been hired.

McDonnell Douglas contends the replacements are highly qualified. Many of them are the engineers who designed the planes and the production system, Williams said.

Before the strike began, the ill-fated jet was undergoing repairs to its fuel system, union machinists who had begun the work told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Friday. In an interview with The Associated Press, Scott confirmed the plane had had a leak in a fuel tank.

Prior to the strike, union workers had begun replacing the tank, machinists spokesman Matt Bates said Friday.

"It was sufficient enough that it was classified as a rebuilt aircraft," Bates said.

The machinists stopped working on the plane when the strike began. At that point, the aircraft still needed complex repairs, Bates said.

"It's highly, highly complicated stuff," Bates said. "It was major surgery, and that installation was not complete when our members ceased work on the airplane."

The jet that crashed carried the manufacturing number C414, which Scott said was the same one he had helped repair. Company spokesman Daryl Stephenson confirmed to the Post-Dispatch that Crutchfield was flying plane C414. Stephenson also said that white-collar employees had completed unfinished repairs to the plane.