Originally Posted by
underfire
From many of the posts, including mx people, this issue appears to be far from rare.
Not sure it isn't that rare - yes its a known problem with the 777 but given the amount in service and the flying hours that they are racking up, if this type of incident happens once a year then its not that big a deal.
You have to remember that most of the time this problem is caught before it progresses to panel loss - so if the Engineer spots loose screws on a turnround and retorques them it becomes a non-issue. The first panel loss I was involved in we highlighted the issue to Base Maintenance who then started to carry out a specific check on the screws on this panel at minor checks and also made sure that the Line guys were aware of the problem. That was over 10 years ago and the operator hasn't suffered another panel loss.