Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the basis for the Air Force's decision to change military specifications for class 3 threaded fasteners, focusing on its estimate of the cost to implement the changes.

GAO found the Air Force: (1) decided to change specifications for class 3 threaded fasteners because of accidents caused by failures of nonconforming threaded parts which had passed existing inspection requirements and the high number of nonconforming products accepted into inventory; and (2) estimated the cost of implementing the changes to be $11 million for the government and about $14 million for industry.