FAA investigating how counterfeit titanium got into Boeing and Airbus jets

However much you can "save" by outsourcing...in a sufficiently fraud-plagued business environment, it's seldom worth it longer-term.

Conveniently, modern businesses and their leaders are judged and rewarded purely on short-term metrics.

"The material, which was purchased from a little-known Chinese company, "

Clearly they are ordering this stuff on aliexpress!

The article says it needs to be treated to be aviation-grade, in some Boeing-approved process.

1. It will be non-magnetic

2. Easiest, most accessible testing method is scratching it on tile or glass. When scratched against glass (or ceramic tile), steel will probably leave a real scratch, aluminum will do nothing, titanium will leave a pencil-like line.

Improper alloying, improper heat treating, improper rolling/forming.

Trying to back out what you actually have (if you don't trust the supply chain) can be expensive metallurgical analysis involving destructive testing, spectrometers, and electron microscopes.

The real way industry solves this problem is mill test reports produced by the suppliers and careful documentation of chain-of-custody.

Unless you don't care, then you just buy whatever from China and pretend you trust the counterfeit documentation that comes with it.