This design was an accident waiting to happen. However, once the problem came to light, it took way too long thru all boards, committees, etc. to be sorted out, and COVID measures did not help with that. Turkish Airlines DC-10 near Paris (decades ago) comes to mind: -known design problem, SB was out, only timing was such that before the airplane was modified, it crashed, killing all aboard. I am also working in Quality stuff for years, now SMS etc. but sometimes I feel that thru all the benefits of orderly processess etc. a simple common sense has evaporated. Instead of having people aware, what they are doing, we give them procedures, loads of warnings, cautions, memos... everything, except proper education. (and money that goes with it).
When I did maintenance licence 30 years ago, I was paid (near inimum wage) to sit in the classroom to listen to the best and most experienced guys in the company for more than a year for basic training theory only. Now, future AMTs just click a,b,c answers on a bunch of exams, study at home on their free time, (if they study at all, some just try to get sample questions on the web to memorize) and collect practical experience on the go, often without any serious coaching. Then we have frozen water in AOA sensors and/or in NLG steering electronics, pushed there with high pressure cleaning, 40 times too much biocide in fuel tank, leaking oil filters as they were squeezed obviously incorrectly into the housing and other hard to believe events. It seems to me that modern airplanes take considerable wrongdoing due to excellent design, but this is obviously changing now-designs not so brilliant anymore. Hope Airbus will not follow the suit.
Last edited by hoistop; 7th Nov 2022 at 14:02.