Opinion ID: 666055
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Volume III--Management Plan

Text: 126 Upon considering Latecoere's proposal to complete the project three months ahead of schedule, Selection Authority Urban stated that, although the Government would benefit from a shorter schedule, he had no way of apportioning a specified value to earlier delivery, because the downing of any aircraft or loss of life due to lack of centrifuge training cannot be discussed in monetary terms of gains or losses. Urban stated that centrifuge training was currently available at other facilities. The GAO characterized Urban as having concluded that the value of Latecoere's earlier delivery could not be quantified because alternative training facilities currently exist[ed]. Wyle, 1990 WL 293722 at  9. However, that is not what he said. First, although he implied that current training facilities were adequate, he never actually said so. Instead he simply refused to apportion[ ] a specified value to the earlier delivery because the downing of any aircraft or loss of life due to lack of centrifuge training cannot be discussed in monetary terms of gain or loss. It appears that, because the lives at stake were priceless, Urban gave them no value at all. That decision was, like many other aspects of this procurement, indefensible. 127 Urban's purported reasoning also ignored the Advisory Council's evidence that a lack of centrifuge training had caused recent aircraft crashes. This evidence, which was removed at Urban's direction, strongly indicates that adequate centrifuge training did not exist. Urban claimed that he disregarded this evidence because G forces--and the lack of adequate training facilities--were only a possible, not the certain, cause of the crashes. Urban testified in deposition that it can almost never be determined with certainty that G forces cause a crash. Of course, no risk is certain but that does not make it rational to discount risk altogether. The Advisory Council had concluded that lack of G-force training created a very real probability of greater mishaps. As former Selection Authority Rowley had explained [t]o further delay this project would ultimately delay the essential training of aircrews and could result in further loss of life and resources. Even assuming that Urban was correct in his belief that it could not be proven to a certainty that delayed completion of the training facility would cost human lives, we cannot accept as rational his disregard of the fact, which he implicitly conceded, that delay would increase the risk to human life. That there was a possibility that selecting ETC instead of Latecoere would cost human lives is important, not only because the Solicitation made safety the highest priority, but also because reducing the risk to human life is of value even when that reduction cannot be quantified or fit into a bureaucratic formula. Urban's stated rationale for discounting the superiority of Latecoere's management proposal and estimated completion date is inadequate, to say the least. 128