I tend to agree with JB, it wasn't apparent that there was a clear link between the repair and the failure. Unless the mfg had good reason to believe that crack they were addressing was indicative of overall excess fatigue and un-serviceability of the spar... that's not clear at all and as JB points out the mfg is not the ultimate authority. They have a clear conflict of interest, ie their economic interest before the operators economic interests.

Still glad I'm in 121. Although there have been at least a couple of catastrophic botched structural repairs of foriegn airliners in the distant past.

Now lets see what UAL does with that 767...