Remember the FAA was hugely embarrassed by the SWA inspection fiasco, so the let the government overreaction begin. Sen. Oberstar starts screaming at the FAA who has to do some serious willy-waving in order to establish credibility. Result: Ground airplanes, now! Regardless of how trivial the problem. No doubt, AA and the MD-80 has some maintenance issues, but grounding in these numbers and the resulting havoc, I doubt it was necessary. After all, 6 years without a major airline having a hull loss (and only the one CRJ at LEX), the industry is hardly a public danger.
GF