Army, Air Force and Navy/Marine Corps policies allow or support the use of cannibalization to meet urgent or mission critical requirements. However, the services’ maintenance policies state that such actions should be minimized, used only after certain conditions have been met, or used only as a last resort because their use tends to adversely affect morale and to aggravate the very same supply problems that they are meant to overcome. Navy policy specifically states that cannibalizations violate personnel utilization policies because they double the documentation and personnel hours needed to remove and install parts and components: two parts must be removed—from two aircraft—and two must be installed, instead of one. Although Army policy limits cannibalization to whenever a needed item is not available through the supply system, it allows commanders at installation levels and below to use their discretion as to whether and how much to cannibalize. In fiscal years 1996-2000, Air Force and Navy units reported a total of about 850,000 cannibalizations, and reported annual figures ranging between 154,000 and 176,000. (See fig. 1.) The numbers remained relatively stable in fiscal years 1996-99 and dropped slightly in fiscal year 2000, when the two services reported about 154,000 cannibalizations. The Air Force and the Navy, however, do not report all cannibalizations, and how much the Army uses cannibalizations is not known because it requires that only very selected cannibalizations be reported. As a result, total Servicewide figures may be considerably higher than those officially reported. Relatively few aircraft types accounted for a large proportion of the cannibalizations in the Navy and Air Force. We found that selected aircraft that the services depend on to accomplish their missions had relatively high cannibalization rates. Some of these aircraft experienced a significant increase in the number of cannibalizations from fiscal year 1996 through fiscal year 2000. During the 5-year period under study (fiscal years 1996-2000), the Navy reported approximately 468,000 cannibalizations, or on average, about 94,000 a year. (See fig. 2.) However, according to recent studies, the actual number of cannibalizations may be much higher. In fiscal year 1998, a Navy group noted that as many as half of all Navy cannibalizations may go unreported. In April 2000, the Navy Inspector General also confirmed that cannibalizations were being consistently underreported and that commanders were concerned that cannibalization was becoming an accepted maintenance practice. In fiscal year 2000, the Navy reported carrying out cannibalizations on 63 different aircraft types. (See app. II.) Five of these aircraft types—FA-18C, P-3C, S-3B, EA-6B, and E-2C—accounted for about 35,000 of the service’s 84,000 reported cannibalizations, or 42 percent of the total for that year. (See fig. 3.) These five aircraft types accounted for 958 aircraft, or 26 percent of the total inventory for which cannibalizations were reported in fiscal year 2000. (See app. II.) The FA-18C is naval aviation’s principal strike fighter for both the Navy and Marine Corps. The P-3C provides the Navy with antisurface warfare, command communication, battle group support, littoral surveillance, and aerial mining. The EA-6B is an all- weather electronic attack aircraft that operates from aircraft carriers and land bases and is the only Department of Defense aircraft that can electronically jam enemy antiaircraft radar. The Navy measures cannibalization rates as the number of cannibalizations per 100 flying hours. In the 5-year period, the Navy’s average cannibalization rate ranged from a high of 9.6 in fiscal year 1997 to a low of 8.8 in fiscal year 2000. In spite of the drop in the servicewide average rate, four aircraft types (S-3B, FA-18E, FA-18B, F-14D) had more than twice the average cannibalization rate in fiscal year 2000, and two others (E-2C and EA-6B) had almost twice the average rate. (See fig. 4.) In fiscal years 1996-2000, the Air Force reported about 376,000 cannibalizations, or on average, about 75,000 a year. (See fig. 5.) However, as with the Navy, these numbers may also be low. In a 1998 review, the Air Force Audit Agency noted that maintenance technicians did not always report cannibalizations. Unlike the Navy Inspector General, the Air Force Audit Agency did not attempt to quantify the extent of underreporting. But the Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff for Installations and Logistics, at the hearing earlier this year, contended that Air Force information systems, while not perfect, do allow reasonably good insight into cannibalizations. Of the 28 Air Force aircraft types that reported cannibalizations in fiscal year 2000, 4 accounted for about 60 percent of the service’s total. These included three fighter aircraft (F-16C, F-15C, and F-15E) and the B-1B bomber. (See fig. 6.) The active inventory represented by these four aircraft types included 1,743 aircraft or 42 percent of the total inventory of aircraft for which cannibalizations were reported in fiscal year 2000. (See app. III.) Several other aircraft types, including the A-10A, OA-10A, F-15B, E-3C, and F-117A, reported a 100-percent increase in cannibalizations over the 5-year period from fiscal year 1996 to fiscal year 2000. Unlike the Navy, the Air Force measures cannibalization rates in terms of cannibalizations per 100 aircraft sorties (one takeoff and one landing comprise one sortie). The Air Force’s average cannibalization rate during the 5-year period ranged from a low of 10.6 in fiscal year 1996 to a high of 12.7 in fiscal year 1997. However, in fiscal year 2000, the cannibalization rates of the B-52H, C-5B, C-5A, and B-1B were all well over twice the average rate of 11.6. The rates for these four aircraft ranged from 30 to 85 cannibalizations per 100 sorties. The rates of the F-15C and F-15E were almost twice the average at 22 and 23, respectively. (See fig. 7.) We were unable to include Army data in our analysis because, unlike the Navy and the Air Force, the Army does not track cannibalization servicewide and does not require subordinate commands to do so. Unit commanders are allowed to report cannibalizations but do not do so consistently, and the data are not aggregated at the service level. The Army requires only that cannibalizations be reported for selected components; these make up less than 4 percent of all aviation repair parts. According to the Army Deputy Chief of Staff for Logistics, although the Army’s reporting systems do not completely track all cannibalizations, there is evidence that cannibalization rates are higher than desired and that commanders are using them more than is desired to meet readiness and mission requirements. Several Army headquarters officials we spoke with agreed that cannibalizations should be tracked to provide an overall picture of how much cannibalization is used to compensate for parts shortage or availability. However, the officials also said that they will not be able to fully track cannibalizations until a new information system is in place and that such a system will not become operational until 2003 or later. Cannibalizations are done to meet operational and readiness needs, but they come at a high cost. Cannibalizations have increased the workload of maintenance personnel by millions of hours since fiscal year 1996—costly time that could have been spent more productively. Evidence shows that increasing the workload of maintenance personnel also has a negative effect on morale. Cannibalizations also take expensive aircraft out of service, sometimes for long periods of time, and can create additional mechanical problems. Nevertheless, it is difficult to gauge the precise effects of cannibalizations because the services do not know how many are performed, the specific reasons for performing them, or how much time and money are spent on them. Cannibalizations increase the workload of maintenance personnel because they take at least twice as long as normal repairs. (See fig. 8.) Thus, a direct cost of cannibalizations is the additional personnel hours required to remove and reinstall a part. In the process, personnel must also check or repair other parts disturbed by the cannibalization. Since fiscal year 1996, the Navy and the Air Force have reported spending about 5.3 million maintenance hours on cannibalizations—the equivalent of more than 500 aviation maintenance personnel working full-time for 5 years. (See fig. 9.) In fiscal year 2000, the Navy reported spending about 441,000 personnel hours on cannibalizations at the squadron level, while the Air Force reported about 510,000 hours. According to one official, units do not have the resources to meet this increased requirement, so maintenance personnel must work harder and longer, even though they are not paid for overtime. If these people leave the military because of work and pay conditions, the services incur additional recruiting, retention, and training costs to replace them. Predictably, aircraft with the highest number of cannibalizations also accounted for a large share of maintenance hours spent on cannibalizations. For example, the Navy’s FA-18A, FA-18C, S-3B, P-3C, E- 2C, and EA-6B consumed about 45 percent of the total reported cannibalization hours in fiscal year 2000. (See fig. 10.)