SLFinAz
As you post consists of quotes from the
Aviation Week editorial, let's look at another one:
At no point in this string of events did anyone knowingly do something wrong or shirk his or her responsibilities.
So the licensed mechanic, knowingly bodging the repair with the wrong material and the wrong fasteners, did not "knowingly do something wrong or shirk his or her responsibilities"?
There is a reason why a certain material and fastening method was specified. If he didn't know the reason he shouldn't have been licensed; if he did know the reason he "knowingly did something wrong or shirked his or her responsibilities".
And, to be clear, the reason can be deduced: the correct material and method had been tested and approved; all others had either not been tested and approved, or had been tested and found wanting. Ergo, using incorrect methods and materials
may cause harm.
One could argue that titanium and stainless steel were functionally equivalent for the purpose, and that stainless steel might have sliced Concorde's tyre in the same way that Ti did. But there is no argument about the quality of the repair, or the fact of wrong fasteners being used, or of the poor workmanship, and that
because of this poor workmanship the strip fell off the DC10 before it had even got airborne on its next flight.