‘Fatigue cracks’ found on F/A-18s

The Navy will inspect hundreds of fighter jets built by Boeing Co. after discovering “fatigue cracks” on more than a dozen aircraft.

The service issued an inspection alert late Thursday for all 636 F/A-18 Hornet aircraft to reduce any safety risk to pilots and the planes. The attack aircraft, which have been used in Iraq and Afghanistan by the Navy and Marine Corps, cost roughly $57 million each.

Each Hornet will be inspected to check for cracks in a hinge that connects the aileron to the plane’s wing. Ailerons are flaps that control a plane’s banking movements and help to stabilize the aircraft in flight.

Most of the inspections are expected to be completed within the next few weeks. The service plans to stagger its inspections and repairs to avoid disruptions of any missions, Navy spokesman Lt. Clayton Doss said Friday. The service will then decide whether to ground planes or restrict flights.

Washington

Joe McCain calls 911 over traffic

The brother of presidential candidate Sen. John McCain says he’ll withdraw from campaign activities after calling 911 to complain about traffic. Joe McCain says he’s sorry about the call.

The GOP candidate’s brother, who lives in Alexandria, Va., told Washington radio station WTOP he was returning from a campaign event in Philadelphia around 2 a.m. Saturday when he got stuck in traffic at a bridge.

Frustrated, he called 911 to figure out what was going on. He also called the Alexandria Police Department.

He tells WTOP he’ll write an apology to the 911 operator and to the Alexandria police. In the meantime, he stopping any campaign activities. He says his brother won’t be happy about the incident.

Stamford, Conn.

‘Dinnertime Bandit’ sent to prison

A man dubbed the “Dinnertime Bandit” for brazenly burglarizing upscale Connecticut homes in the 1990s while their residents were home was sentenced Friday to 15 years in prison.

Alan Golder, 53, told the Associated Press in a prison interview in February that he burglarized hundreds of homes from 1975 until 1980, including those of Johnny Carson, the Kennedys in Florida and singer Glen Campbell.

“I liked the planning,” Golder said then. “I liked the execution. I liked the reward.”

Golder was dubbed the “Dinnertime Bandit” after several Greenwich-area homes were burglarized in 1996 and 1997.

In 1978, real estate developer Lawrence Lever was fatally shot at his New York home by an accomplice of Golder’s during a break-in. Golder served 15 years in prison and was paroled in June 1996.

The Connecticut thefts began three months after Golder’s release. Prosecutors argued the Connecticut burglaries bore his signature style. They say Golder scaled mansion walls wearing a black “ninja”-type suit and hood, slipped through second-floor windows during dinnertime and stole jewelry and property worth nearly $1 million. In one case, he tied up a woman in her home.

Golder fled the country in 1997 to live in Europe. He was arrested in Belgium in 2006 and extradited to Connecticut.