revealed stress fractures in the 58-year-old Grumman G-73 Turbine Mallard seaplane's right wing support that could have played a key role."
Coulda, mighta, may have, possibly did, whatever.
Dangerkitty is right. All the speculation worshippers who were barking at the moon about stress this, engine failure that...and even the most basic facts still coming to light...and the investigation a year from being complete.
You guys need to quit your day jobs and go chair the NTSB. With your mechanical expert prowness in seeing right to the heart of the matter, the fools who believe the investigation will take a year can be put aside and fired...who needs them when we have you?
Do the mechanics look for cracks? Mechanics do look for cracks, but each inspection is scheduled based on a checklist of specific items for which to look, and the methods of inspection to be used to look for those items.
Chalks has a long history of being recognized for their efforts at anticorrosion, and has been used as a case study be various agencies and organizations...they do good work.
If a crack develops in an area that was unanticipated, for which no inspection has been devised by the manufacturer, type certificate holder, it may go unseen. We've seen failures occur recently in modern turbine airline equipment, and repeatedly over the past few decades. Not just cracking failures, but failures of all sorts. Concorde had repeated losses of parts of the rudder and puncture damage due to blown tires...just like what finally destroyed it...and it kept flying.
New aircraft fail just like old aircraft. Truth be told, I'd much rather fly on a tried and proven airframe than something right out the factory door. Having learned to fly on 50 year old aircraft and having flown aircraft that are older, with wooden spars, I feel comfortable with older aircraft. I've had more problems on new aircraft, aircraft that have 50 hours or less since new, than I have had old airplanes...and that in modern designs of recent manufacture.
Age isn't the issue. Known problems and the efforts undertaken to surveil them is. With newer technology that's still coming on scene such as PIPA inspection, previously undetected and untestable crack prone areas can be located at any depth, and cracks can be identified before they form. That technology hasn't been available in the past, and isn't available generally now. We don't know what downed this aircraft. The NTSB seems willing to put in the effort to make a legitimate investigation, using expert industry input and analysis, and will probably release the complete report in a year.
Fortunately we have oodles of experts here who know it all, and can save them the trouble. Lucky us.
