Originally Posted by
Sunfish
Tartare, any with cracks are to be grounded immediately. Boeing has yet to come up with a repair scheme, so the grounding could be lengthy.. Qantas doesn’t want to look for cracks earlier than the AD specifies because it would be very inconvenient to find them early. That is what Purvinas is angling at. Inspection apparently takes about an hour.
‘’The AD specifies 7 days for high time aircraft and within about 4 months (1000 cycles) for low time aircraft from my reading of the AD.
‘As for Qantas commitment to safety, don’t make me laugh. My bet is that repairs will be subcontracted overseas.
And so what if it is... all this crap about 'offshoring'... I'm old enough to remember ALL of the MAJOR maintenance on 747-238Bs being done exclusively by United Air Lines in San Francisco for many years until the fleet grew to a point where it was economical to do it in Australia.
There's a certain degree of arrogance in the assumption that only Australian Engineers can do a good job, yet all the aircraft are built overseas... so you can't have it both ways. How is it that Qantas with a fleet of 75 737s can be the only option for repair??? Southwest operates nearly 800 737s, how could they possibly not be more expert in their maintenance.
It always amuses me, not trusting offshore maintenance when at least some of those countries build components for airliners.