Meanwhile - out in the real world..., page-6

The Southwest Boeing 737 near disasters in 2009 and 2011, due to failure of fuselage structural integrity (crack/ holes developed) has very probably been covered here many times in the past.  In 2012 a Quantas  Airbus A380 also featured re the same issue. Wasnt around on these boards then.

Just a reminder of why CVM tech would have come to prominence though should perhaps have been a done deal by now if safety is the principal concern.  With the Southwest case its implied that tho FAA had requested inspections these might have not been done.  In March of 2011, Southwest paid the FAA a $7.5 million fine, the second largest in FAA history, for flying 46 Boeing 737s without performing mandatory inspections for fuselage cracks in 2007. These 2 incidents in 2009 and 2011 led to the FAA increasing the inspection rate of certain airframes.  Obviously these incidents also led to large scale inspections and significant downtime for large parts of their fleet.  After an initial check of about 20 planes that had flown more than 1300 flights, found cracks in almost A380s the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) requested inspection of all 68 in use worldwide.  A very costly consequence for all concerned but without question utterly necessary

https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2009/0716/p02s17-usgn.html (Southwest Boeing 737, 2009)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_Airlines_Flight_812
http://theconversation.com/the-airbus-a380-wing-cracks-an-engineers-perspective-5318 (Quantas Airbus A380, 2012)