> Ground observers reported the aircraft had been delayed for about two hours for work on the left hand engine (engine #1), the engine #1 separated during the takeoff run, the center engine emitted streaks of flames, the aircraft impacted a UPS warehouse and ploughed through other facilities before coming to rest in a large plume of fire and smoke.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/11/airplane-maintenance...
TDLR 10-20 years ago, the US started allowing maintenance of domestic planes in foreign countries, outside the reach of the FAA’s inspections
Foreign Repair Stations date back to the 90s [1], the thing is they need to be supervised by an FAA Certified Mechanic. Inspection of these was already a hot issue in the early '00s... No one gave a fuck, it was all about saving costs for a very long time.
The linked 2007 report's second page (!) already leads with this:
> Since 2001, eight commercial air carriers have gone through bankruptcy and one has ceased operations. Fuel prices remain high, and this makes cost control a key factor in both the sustained profitability and overall survival of an airline.
IMHO, this is a perfect example why the government needs to regulate prices in safety-critical industries. The "race to the bottom" must be prevented - sorry, flying NYC-SFO for 70$, that's not sustainable.
[1] https://www.oig.dot.gov/sites/default/files/Web_File_Foreign...
Are you saying higher prices would lead to better safety?
If so, I think it's optimistic to assume that would be the result, rather than just more profits.
I'm all for tighter regulations and enforcement on safety and maintenance, though.
Higher prices and regulations.
With no floor on pricing, there will always be enough greedy executives who are willing to cut corners to make money in a ruthlessly competitive environment, fully knowing that it is very hard to prosecute a C-level executive personally.
The other possible result will be that eventually the market "agrees upon" a minimum price floor while being in compliance to regulations - but that usually means that the company will be as bare-stripped of assets and reserves as possible, which means in turn that the slightest external shock can (and will) send not just one but multiple companies crashing down hard. We've seen this with Covid - an economy that has optimized itself for decades on running as lean as possible is very sensitive to all sorts of external interruptions. Of course, that's not directly relevant to safety... but indirectly it is, as the inevitable result of that is an oligo-, duo- or monopoly and then, we've seen with Boeing where that ends, incentives aligned too much to cut corners.