Quote:
Originally Posted by zipper
There's really no reason to think the plane couldn't have made the flight.
|
That would be agreeable if the machine was attended to properly and thoroughly, with sufficient resources. Problem is, it wasn't. As skilled as they were, these guys simply did not have the resources required to do a proper job in such a difficult environment, and they knew it from the start, but despite compounding risks they tried forcing it anyway. This may be acceptable if you're trying to get an old PT boat to run, but not for a large, complex aircraft that has been sitting idle for a half-century in a hostile environment. As tragic as it turned out, they were very fortunate things ended up the way they did, with the aircraft still on the ground.
You don't have to be a certified aircraft mechanic to see that the likelihood of an unhappy ending was high. Common sense had to prevail at some point...