[NJ_gent]

Wonderful. You know, until we stop bailing out the airlines, we'll never get fiscally responsible people into positions of power in the major airlines. People who cut engine maintenance to feed their multi-million dollar bonuses are, by no means, fiscally responsible. Perhaps when airplanes start falling from the skies people will wake up to things like this.

[blackdog]

It's my experience that the planes are themselves rock solid. But you are right about stuff falling off of them. I've left flaps, windows, sections of cowlings, gear doors, prop chunks, and fairings all over the terra firma after a long ride down.

In the case of proven platform planes with millions of hours and flight cycles recorded worldwide, it's mostly a paperwork thang as you earlier mentioned. Something like the contracted company didn't magnaflux the parts before shipment by a certified lab or something like that. It may have been a new vendor that Boeing might have omitted a specification that should have been on the specs but they forgot. It happens a lot. Usually the parts and processes in making them is all traceable and can be fixed by an inspection or paperwork entry during the next 100 hour inspection. It just will make someone look very bad.