Proactive, Not Reactive, Aircraft Inspection

Turns out the aulunimum skin had the rivet holes drilled oversize!

I would appreciate your stating the authoritative source of this information. Was it from a reputable and knowledgeable source, or from someone's speculation? It's important to know this.

That part of the fuselage hadn't had a problem before, so theoretically it was safe to fly IF the various levels of inspection on the aircraft are completed as per 'spec'. However some aircraft are being subjected to more flight cycles than considered 'normal'. If I remember the story behind this 'peeling' - the a/c had flown about 1/3rd more than was considered safe. Simply put, it was too old.

It's not just the 'testing', but regular pro-active maintenance, legitimate parts and properly trained personnel - all $$$.

The airlines don't want to spend money for a newer fleet. Who can afford a new car these days..try that with aircraft. Our only way to avoid these sort of confrontations, is to fly with companies which do upgrade their fleets with newer a/c.

Maintenance dollars have been reduced by outsourcing or delaying inspections. This is the expected result.

"This part of the fuselage, after all, had not been subject to previous testing because there had never been a problem before"

This may be of interest

For the non-link followers;

"The Service Difficulty Report (SDR) history for the Southwest 737 involved in the incident on April 1 shows numerous crack repairs, including one for the fuselage as recently as March 2010 during a scheduled maintenance check.

In 2008, the FAA imposed a $10.2 million penalty on Southwest for failing to correctly inspect some 737s for fuselage cracks in 2007. After Southwest discovered the lack of inspections in March 2008, it continued to operate the aircraft for eight more days on 1,451 flights, the FAA said."

"but shouldn't aircraft inspection be more aggressively proactive and less reactive?"

More like "but shouldn't aircraft inspection be done"?

But it's nice they had "a competent pilot"