Just over a week ago, 586 Air Force sergeants in the service’s largest career field were told they were being promoted, a moment that is traditionally a cause for celebration in all military units. Beaming commanders shook their hands in happy ceremonies. Some units held parties with balloons and cakes decorated with the 5-striped chevrons of a technical sergeant, the rank the airmen had earned.
Now, the Air Force said Monday, 135 of those promotions have been cancelled.
Officials said Monday that a written promotion test taken earlier this year by staff sergeants in the security forces career field — by far the largest job in the Air Force — was graded incorrectly. Those incorrect scores inadvertently ranked 135 staff sergeants too high among the more than 2,000 security forces airmen competing for promotion to technical sergeant.
Using that list, the top 586 security forces staff sergeants were told they had been selected for promotion, including the 135.
When corrected, officials say, the reshuffling order bumped those 135 airmen out of the promotion range.
Their promotions, the Air Force said Monday, have been cancelled. A different 135 security forces staff sergeants, whose corrected test scores moved them up in the rankings, will now get those promotions.
“Preserving the integrity of the promotion system, the enlisted promotion team conducted a full re-score,” Air Force officials said. “The result established a new, correct promotion cut-off, identifying the rightful earners for promotion and those whose line numbers will be revoked.”
In a Monday press release, officials with the Air Force Personnel Center said “the error was an isolated and highly unprecedented anomaly” that affected only the security forces.
“We owe it to those affected to address it immediately,” said Chief Master Sgt. of the Air Force David R. Wolfe. “This is going to be hard for everyone impacted.”
Error hits Air Force’s largest career field
With more than 43,000 airmen, almost 1 in every 7 members of the Air Force serves in security forces. Airmen in the job wear distinctive dark blue berets and are ubiqitous at every Air Force base and installation around the world. The nearly-all enlisted corps is charged with all aspects of base security and on-base law enforcement.
The testing error applied to staff sergeants seeking promotion to technical sergeant. The two ranks are the Air Force’s designated non-commissioned officer ranks, or NCO (the E-4 paygrade, which is considered an NCO in the Navy, Army and Marines, is the top of the junior enlisted ranks in the Air Force). A promotion to technical sergeant in the Air Force is often the ticket for an airman to serve a full 20 years in uniform, eventually retiring with full benefits.
The SKT error, officials said, resulted in 27 questions being graded incorrectly on the SKT. In all, 2,285 security forces staff sergeants took the SKT. The error, officials said, was not due to AI. “No artificial intelligence products were used in the erroneous promotion cycle process; it was the result of human error.”
The 135 security forces airmen now in line for the promotion will be informed next week, the Air Force said, as part of a “supplemental promotion release.” That release, which is routine in promotion cycles, normally moves up a small number of airmen who just missed promotion cut-offs, but for whom a slot subsequently opens within the personnel system.
The Air Force said steps were being taken “to mitigate the possibility of similar errors in the future.” Grading and ranking systems, the release said, will get “a thorough review” along with “implementing quality-assurance safeguards to prevent this specific point of failure in future promotion release cycles.”
“We promote Airmen based on merit, which is established in federal law and policy,” said Lt. Gen. Jefferson O’Donnell, deputy chief of staff for manpower, personnel, and services. “We have a core obligation to ensure the airmen who earned it are selected.”
