In November 2004, Rolls-Royce and Boeing advised airlines to replace the blades “at the earliest opportunity” with new, higher quality ones that would not fail.
When the engine on the 717 failed, the blades had not been replaced but the operator was in the “process” of doing so.
But the operator, National Jet Systems on behalf of QantasLink, had conducted an ultrasonic inspection of all the engines as instructed to detect for any cracks in the blades.
So, I fail to see the issue here...
NJS had conducted the ultrasonic inspection AS REQUIRED.
It is simplistic to require an operator to ground it's fleet pending supply of some parts unless required to do otherwise.
Subsequent events showed that earlier replacement would have been better, but there are always issues like this with any aircraft and Airlines have to be guided by the manufacturers in conjunction with the regulators.
As to the Formula 1 reference....Well.....