So this all just serves to confirm that report, and what people suspected for a while; the bolts were just missing, removed for removing the door plug for the rivet rework and never reinstalled.
there was apparently two (identical) procedures -- one for "removing" the door plug and one for "opening" the door plug -- but only one of them actually called for paper-work and quality inspection after it is done.
It seems they decided to "open" the door plug instead of "remove" it to work on the sealing issue? -- and thereefore documentary record of the work performed and inspection thereafter is lacking.
It would be useful IMO to explore what led the team to prefer "opening" versus "removing" -- and if the subtle difference in documentation requirement was a consideration in preferring one over the other -- and if that points to deeper pervasive culture issues that leans towards less work rather than give safety and quality the primary importance.
I think there was an approved procedure (“removing the plug”) and a deviance from process, justified with ad hoc semantic games.
what the Spirit mechanics had to do was a RMV, they knew this, because the Boeing eng rep told them so, but they didn’t like this, so they marked it in the system as an OPEN but performed the work of a RMV, to avoid the additional quality checks a RMV would require. And then they fucked up the RMV but didn’t know and no one else did because it was marked as an OPEN so no one checked the bolts.
this was very intentional. the Spirit mechanics thought they were hot shit and didn’t need to follow the stupid, slow process. and they abused the system to allow them to file the work as more innocuous than it was. because they didn’t need anyone checking their work, or whatever they were thinking.
But you’re right. It’s not the black belts you have to watch out for it, it’s the browns.
I can remember when I was small my Mom mentioned that doors of buildings in the US are mandatory to open to the outside, a rule that does not exist in Europe AFAIK. So there you have it, you have a significant higher chance of crashing in a Boeing, but when it happens, your can leave the plane 2 seconds faster.
Boeing opens the emergency exit to the outside and we all know that they will just pop out during flight every time they forget to bolt them. Airbus has a fail save design: unlock, pull in, then throw it out. No way you can open these during flight, with or without bolts.