Showerthought: I looked up the actual failure rate for a common connector and the numbers were not what I expected

I was reading an old FAA report from 2018 about in-flight faults. It said that for a specific, widely used D-sub connector in a certain avionics bay location, the primary cause of failure wasn't corrosion or vibration, but bent pins from repeated ground handling. The report claimed bent pins caused over 60% of the faults for that part. I always thought environmental factors were the big issue. Has anyone else seen data that changed how you approach a routine check?

2 comments

2 Comments

grace_stone19d ago

Wasn't that report from 2016, not 2018?

-1

ryan_flores19d agoMost Upvoted

Hold up, @grace_stone, you're missing the bigger point. The year doesn't really change the facts inside the report. That 2016 data showed the same trend that kept going strong into 2018. Look at the housing market numbers, they followed the exact same pattern for years. Fixating on the date just lets people ignore the real info we should be talking about.