alt Hacker NewsI am wondering what the exact fail mode here is.
Because my naive conclusion after looking at the part in question is exactly the same "would not result in a safety of flight condition." if the bearing cracked at the point in question it is going nowhere, the bearing is still captive in its housing. hell it looks like it could have been designed as two pieces and it would work the same. the large bolt is what is holding the engine on.
The best I can come up with is that a split bearing causes increased wear on the mounting bracket and nobody noticed for a long time.
Anyhow, here is the ntsb update in question https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Documents/DCA26MA024%20I...
That's indeed a very naive conclusion. Once that bearing is gone the stress that it would normally allow to escape on account of rotation would be directly transferred to the metal around it and to the bolts holding the whole thing in place. Guess what broke first?
So if that bearing went that's not quite a smoking gun yet but it would definitely be a step closer to a root cause.