{"id":4484,"date":"2026-07-09T19:31:26","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T19:31:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bidlink.net\/news\/?p=4484"},"modified":"2026-07-09T19:31:27","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T19:31:27","slug":"c-130-escape-slide-disaster-only-one-survivor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bidlink.net\/news\/2026\/07\/c-130-escape-slide-disaster-only-one-survivor\/","title":{"rendered":"C-130 Escape Slide Disaster, Only One Survivor"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Emergency<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Aircraft Maintenance Squadron crew chief, uses a C-5M Super Galaxy emergency escape slide at Travis Air Force Base, California<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the Defense Department relies on Only One Surviving company to provide a Critical Safety Item for 100\u2019s of aircraft, that can spell disaster.\u00a0 This week while reviewing some open solicitations<\/a> for Escape Slides used on the C-130 Aircraft we decided to do some investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In many cases with Government contracts there are multiple suppliers for a single item, however only one approved manufacturer.  For this specific NSN 4240-01-075-6640 which is an inflatable escape slide used on the C-130 aircraft there are two open solicitations coming from two different DLA buying activities equating to orders totaling 50 each with an estimated contract value over $500,000. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After reviewing past sales (procurement history)<\/a> of this NSN we looked over 50 contract awards going back 17 years, Only One Surviving Manufacture for this item.\u00a0 It was sold to the DoD from a few companies like Syracuse International Technologies, All-Safe Inc., and Atlantic Diving Supply all who are Non-Manufacturers.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only One Company manufacturing a Critical Safety Item (CSI) for the U.S Airforce<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is this a problem?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What happens if that manufacturer shuts down?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, the Sole Source manufacturer of this NSN is Air Cruisers Company a Foreign Owned corporation.\u00a0 They were sold a few times, first to Zodiac then to Safran, now known as Safran Aerosystems Evacuation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What happens if they sell again to adversarial country and decide not to sell to the US<\/strong>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With this solicitation as well as many others the Defense Department welcomes new potential manufacturers to produce the items, with a statement like this: “The offeror must provide a complete data package including data for the approved and alternate part for evaluation<\/em>” In many cases the current buy doesn\u2019t go to the new manufacturer due to the time to evaluate, this is your time to prepare for the next buy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The simple task of reviewing past procurement history<\/a>, looking at who sells the item (are they a manufacturer or not) can potentially help increase your government sales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is only one example of 1000\u2019s of items with only one source \u201cSOLE SOURCE\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For this specific case if you\u2019re a company that has the ability to make a rubber inflatable slide maybe you can have a new source of income Selling to DOD.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The two Defense Logistics Agencies buying these items are:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

DLA Troop Support Construction and Equipment – Strategic Materiel Sourcing Group Corporate Contracts<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

DLA Troop Support Construction and Equipment – Construction and Barriers (Class IV)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tired of DIBBS \/ SAM and bid services that don\u2019t understand defense contracting? Want to discover new manufacturing opportunities, Try BidLink for free at www.bidlink.net<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aircraft Maintenance Squadron crew chief, uses a C-5M Super Galaxy emergency escape slide at Travis Air Force Base, California When the Defense Department relies on Only One Surviving company to provide a Critical Safety Item for 100\u2019s of aircraft, that can spell disaster.\u00a0 This week while reviewing some open solicitations for Escape Slides used on … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “C-130 Escape Slide Disaster, Only One Survivor”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-industry_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bidlink.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bidlink.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bidlink.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bidlink.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bidlink.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4484"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.bidlink.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4484\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4494,"href":"https:\/\/www.bidlink.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4484\/revisions\/4494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bidlink.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bidlink.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bidlink.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}