The United States Air Force lost a B2 Stealth Bomber valued at $US 1.4 billion because of a failure to transfer knowledge between pilots and maintenance technicians. The bomber crashed earlier this year at Andersen Air Force Base on the island of Guam. Apparently water distorted pre-flight readings in three of the plane's 24 sensors, making the aircraft's control computer force the B-2 to pitch up on takeoff, resulting in a stall and subsequent crash.

The official accident investigation found that the crash probably could have been avoided if knowledge of a technique to evaporate the moisture had been disseminated throughout the B-2 command. This technique was:

"never formalized in a technical order change or captured in 'lessons learned' reports: hence, only some pilots and some maintenance technicians knew of the suggestion".

Well there's the human factor of knowledge management at play! Sharing knowledge matters; and failure to do so can be very costly indeed.  What more incentive do we need.

Regards, Graham