I can certainly confirm your assessment of the 'Journo's'. Here in the UK in March 2000 we had a chief reporter from an aviation newspaper write a load of old crap about Concorde having an inflight emergency with one of it's TWO engines plus it's TAILPLANE INCIDENCE INDICATOR. In case there was any doubt about the guy's stupidity, he even printed a photo with the article clearly showing he did'nt have a clue what he was talking about. When challenged about the accuracy of his article the response was that the info was direct from the CAA and totally accurate, even though the rest of the planet know different. That is how ignorant and arrogant the press can be. Having said that, if we could rely on a reasonable degree of competence and integrity from media reporters I would support full and free reporting of the more serious maintenance violations. The best quality control would be by fare paying passengers using their freedom of choice to force the beancounters to act responsibly. In the UK we have TV documentaries which 'name & shame' dodgy builders,plumbers, car dealers etc etc. Why not do the same with dodgy maintenance organisations and/or corrupt individuals within? This would be far more efficient than the present system where QA are too scared of the corrupt management above them to take any action. The beancounters could even take comfort from the fact that you don't have to pay the reporters to publicize such incidents so could cut costs on the innefective QA dept. After all it's the fashion to hive off large chunks of the organisation such as engine shops and stores, etc,etc, so why not chop the bits that don't work instead of the bits we need?
[This message has been edited by The Weasel (edited 13 April 2001).]