Like Vortex, I'm not suggesting anything underhand is going on but the reality is that air travel is the safest form of transport and is so because both the pilots and engineers are consumate professionals and neither would consider allowing an aircraft to fly in an unsafe condition.
There are procedures in place to allow aircraft to fly with recorded defects (Mel/DDPG) and as long as the defect can be defered in accordance with the MEL/DDPG correctly with any maintenance or operational actions accounted for and cleared by the allotted time allowed, this is perfectly legal and normal pratice in every airline, dependent on their operating procedures.
If the ALAE or the AEI have concerns then rightly so they should be investigated but personally I would rather this done by discusion with the organisations concerned and the enginering members of both rather than through the press medium.
There are far bigger issues to discuss with regard to engineering in this industry, but this one will sell papers this weekend. I have just read the same story on a russian website with a photo of the Helios incident attached, looks good, sells papers but accurate????????????