As you guys are mostly pilots on here, how many of you can say hand on heart that you have never taken off in a aircraft that had a defect you were concerned about?
I was once on a aircraft taking off from Schiphol. Some way down the runway the captain changed his mind about completing the take off. He had the good grace to come on to the PA and tell us that there had been a computer fault which he thought he could override. Apparently the faster the aircraft went, the more insistent the warnings became that he should not do so. Eventually he conceded that aborting the take off was the wise thing to do. In order to rectify the fault we had to sit on an unused taxiway, whilst he re-booted the computer. This took about twenty minutes (perhaps ATC delays contributed to this) So we landed a bit late.
I have never really made up my mind whether I commend him for admitting his mistake or blame him for making it in the first place. It makes me wonder how many times I have been on an aircraft in which the safe arrival has been a bit marginal.
I did once fly with a small airline across the North Sea, in which the flight deck door was a curtain. Sometime into the flight the curtain moved and we could see that several of the instruments were not working , indeed at least two of them were smashed! Needless to say we arrived safely, but it was all a bit worrying.