The Air Force said 135 service members will lose their promotions to technical sergeant after officials uncovered a testing error.
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Air Force announced Tuesday that it is revoking promotions for 135 airmen because of a scoring mistake on a promotion exam.
In a news release, the service said the mistake “fundamentally corrupted” the 26E6 technical sergeant promotion cycle, while emphasizing that no other Air Force specialty codes were affected. Officials described the problem as an “isolated and highly unprecedented anomaly.”
“We owe it to those affected to address it immediately,” Chief Master Sgt. of the Air Force David R. Wolfe said in the release. “This is going to be hard for everyone impacted.”
According to the Air Force, a member of the enlisted promotions team discovered that an outdated scoring key had been applied to the 3P071 Specialty Knowledge Test and that 27 incorrect keys were used. To preserve confidence in the promotion system, the team re-scored all 2,285 eligible personnel.
The promotion quota for the 26E6 cycle was set at 586. After the scores were recalculated, officials determined that 135 airmen no longer met the cutoff and would have their promotions withdrawn. The review also found 135 airmen who had earned promotion to technical sergeant.
“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. “Who we are as an Air Force, defined by our core values, demands integrity in the meritocratic promotion system; we have a core obligation to ensure the Airmen who earned it are selected.”
The Air Force attributed the mistake to human error and said artificial intelligence was not used at any point in the promotion cycle process.
