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The DC-10 cargo door issue was unprecedented in its time, and the first failure was smoothed over with a phone call from the CEO to the FAA, instead of an airwo
by MontagFTB 3y ago
The DC-10 cargo door issue was unprecedented in its time, and the first failure was smoothed over with a phone call from the CEO to the FAA, instead of an airworthiness directive. The plane wasn’t grounded until the second incident killed all aboard.
I am glad for the AD in this case, and hope the FAA casts as watchful an eye over Boeing that we are all hoping they will, but shortcuts have happened before.
- acdha 3y agoYes - I'd like to think that we've learned better but that was in the late 1970s and we are suspiciously around the time where the people who had direct experience would have retired or been on the way out, similar to how a lot anti-vax recruits were too young to have lived memory of just how many kids things like polio harmed. It sometimes seems like we need the engineering equivalent of what Germany does with Holocaust education to remind everyone of how past disasters were preventable, and usually caused by multiple people deciding not to act on early warning signs.
- p_l 3y agoAnd the FAA director at the time was selected specifically as a person who would be more willing to play ball with the business, and had such marching orders from President. Similar thing happened during Bush Jr's administration.