The "Mother Jones" report talks of some 1600 commercial aircraft potentially being affected. What has me wondering is the fact that no airline has come up with that issue since 1994 as the allegation states this malpractice to have started.
Most if not all airlines, to my knowledge, send their own engineering team to the manufactures plants for construction supervision. These team also meet on a regular basis, on location, to exchange their findings and potential problems within a given fleet. Issues, especially such as shy-edge margin riveting, structural integrity, tolerances etc. are closely scrutinized by those teams.
Even if not every airlines construction supervision team checks on every little detail or were to slack of in some cases – which I know isn’t the case – at 1600 aircraft somebody would have found a potential, latent problems.
If I were to assume that fraud was in play, successfully coordinated by Boeing and its vendor, then I would be safe to assume that such malpractice would have surfaced by the first D check. But yet again, there has been no such case to my knowledge thus far.
I wouldn’t rule out bad parts though. Wrong and bad (uncertified or non-airworthy) parts have always been an issue within construction and maintenance. I sure that if such is the case, it will be brought to light upon and audit and inspection and the appropriate measures will be taken.
As I have mentioned before and has been reiterated by westhawk, this "Mother Jones" report makes for an interesting read, but does not by any stretch of imagination mean that Boeing is not safe.