You are right PAXBoy in many ways, if a 737 takes of or lands every 30s somewhere in the world that’s 120 slat retractions per hour, 2880 per day, 20160 per week, ……. You get the drift.
If there was a manufacturing fault it would have showed up years ago and Boeing would have had to redesign the system. Think in the terms of what they did to the rudder PCU.
However this does appear to be maintenance related, which of course Boeing may not be directly responsible for the maintenance actions or control on individual aircraft. But they are the design authority and produce the maintenance manuals for the aircraft and systems, hence there is ultimately responsibility.
Someone will sue, for sure, directly it will be China Airlines, who will pass the buck and so on and so forth, Boeing will be called as a co-defendant and well you get the idea.
So at sometime in the last maintenance check, a person installed the bolt and tightened it, whether it was done correctly or not, or if there was metal fatigue in the track assembly….. whatever the Japanese Safety Authorities determine to be the fundamental cause of the accident. The manufacturer will be dragged into someway.
Not to single out Mr Boeing but Mr Airbus has had the same problem. On the 20/1/92 an A320 flew into the top of a hill near Strasbourg. The pilots mistakenly had set “3.3” in the mode control panel of the autopilot, thinking that they had set a 3.3 degree descent path. What they had actually done is set a 3300fpm rate of descent and the promptly crashed. There was nothing mechanically wrong with the airframe before impact.
Airbus as the Design Authority held ultimate responsibility for the accident as I believe it was successfully argued that it was a design error. Just as many people would argue it was the pilots fault, however it was an AD and a redesign of the system by Airbus that was made in the effort that this never happened again.
In essence the insurers will have a $40 million dollar claim for the airframe, the airport will have a claim for someone burning their tarmac, the passengers will attempt to claim post traumatic stress disorder, (when I grew up you would just be happy to be alive) and sue for whatever they can get and Boeings insurers will be awaiting the out fall.
I should have rephrased it that the insurers are going to give Mr Boeings insurance a kicking. Even though the issuance of an Emergency AD is no admission of guilt.
I hope I cleared that up
