Why is it that, whenever an incident like this occurs, the media wheel out an expert who says something like - "the part wasn't important, the aircraft can fly safely without it"!
I am sorry to sound naive but, if that is the case, why not save cost and weight by not putting it there in the first place?
I suppose it depends largely on the meaning of the word "safely". For example, whilst a twin-engine aircraft can fly on one working engine, that would not be as "safely" as if it still had two.
