Newspaper Reports trigger Panic Attack!!!
Someone senior in the Finance Department (Yes. A beancounter) forwarded a copy of a "Cracks in Wings - Engines might fall off Oh God we're all gonna die! shock-horror! Gasp!" newspaper report about an airline having to ground their old B767-200 fleet to someone else senior in Management. Result? A directive is handed down from on high and we have to rummage through the Boeing Master Service Bulletin Index and our assessment files to ensure that we haven't missed the Bulletin as well. We haven't. The bulletin is not applicable to our machines.
Not good enough. Another instruction to check with Boeing to ensure that we haven't missed it and that it really isn't applicable to our fleet - obviously engineers are too thick to manage themselves properly. The newspaper report didn't include anything useful such as a fact for example. Rumour and innuendo were deemed sufficient. The report DID mention that the problem was related to something called "High Frequency Cracks" Presumably these are the cracks that we detect by using "High Frequency Eddy-Current Crack Detection?"
Now. Are we engineering or what? Who is in charge of airworthiness these days? The industry or the newspapers? How do we deal with this sort of nonsense? Can we sue? Only if we are named in the report I suppose.
Why does the press have to sensationalise everything to do with aviation?
The report refers to a situation where a reputable airline made a decision to deal with a non-mandatory Alert Service Bulletin in one way, while the airworthiness authority took a different view. The authority reacted by issuing an immediate A.D. to force the airline to ground its fleet and carry out the work immediately instead of later. Regardless of the merits of one course of action over the other this is a purely engineering matter. The FAA and other national airworthiness authorities have never mandated the inspection/repair and this is an engineering disagreement. It should remain so and non-engineers who, by definition don't understand the issues, have no business interfering.
What is the general consensus among airline engineers then? Or pilots and journalists for that matter, all sensible comments are welcome. (Please keep the airline name out of it. Company names are irrelevant and, for the sake of the good name of engineering, please be polite.)
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Through difficulties to the cinema
[This message has been edited by Blacksheep (edited 13 April 2001).]