From the cited report: Grant Brophy, an air safety investigator and director of flight safety and security programs at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Fla., likened getting on a plane with a malfunctioning slide to being at sea without a life jacket.
"Nine times out of 10, the boat's not going to sink, but there's always that one time," Brophy said. He thinks the board does not go far enough in recommending testing for 10 percent of slides.
"You're going to test more than 10 percent to statistically prove if there's an issue or if there is no issue," Brophy said.
This seems flawed - the "talking head" who doesn't actually know what they are talking about. Statistically, you don't need a sample of 10% to establish whether 10% are faulty, or whether there is an issue. You look at the number of failures in the percentage that you test, and the percentage you test gives you some idea of the confidence with which you know the answer.
Also, if the problem is rigging, then it's not as though having tested the slide, you know it is free from problem - because once it is repacked, it might be wrong again.
Also, the metaphor is misleading. Except for in a ditching, a slide that fails to inflate isn't going to be useless.
Also I wouldn't put too much store by the fact that 8 people were injured in an emergency evacuation in the States - even if all the slides were working. Knowing the litigious nature of society there, I'm surprised that as few as 8 were injured! And what does "injured" mean, anyway? Sprained ankle? "A slight bruise to the upper arm" (vide Douglas Adams)? Confined to a wheelchair for the rest of their life? And were they obeying the instructions? Insufficient data to attach significance to this fact.
Sorry, whilst other correspondents may be impressed that somebody has "come clean", this looks to me like an attempt to make a story into something more dramatic than it actually was.