When I taught A&P courses many years ago, on the very first night – before formal classroom work started – I made an hour long talk about ‘being an airplane mechanic and what that means.’ Among the points … the purpose of discipline. By being disciplined (not punished), a person develops self-discipline no longer needing the long arm of someone else to ensure proper conduct when no one was looking over your shoulder. It’s easy to take the easy road; not so easy to do things right. THAT was my point. Basic military training serves the same function.
With my ‘epithets,’ my point was that Boeing was responsible to do the work properly in the first place, has QA functions to make sure anyways and Government rep responsibility on top of that not to mention union complicity. ALL failed. Why? Too much bureaucracy and not enough self-discipline.
As far as the FAA Bureaucracy, same story, different flavor. The FAA can lead people to water but can’t make 'em drink. So the Administrator comes tap dancing in front of Congress with some great stories because THEY didn’t enforce things properly either.
So how do you fix all of this. SImplify and enforce self-discipline. The constant push for ‘productivity’ vs. quality is part of the problem. Ultimately, a line worker didn’t do his/her job and there’s a reason for that?