In July 2000, at Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport, airline mechanic John Taylor
riveted a seventeen-inch wear strip he had fabricated to a DC-10's General Electric CF6-50
engine. Taylor had difficulty positioning all the rivets and used aircraft mastic to help hold the
wear strip in place.
A wear strip is a piece of sacrificial metal that acts both as a cushion as well as a tight
seal for the engine's thrust reverser cowling. Replacing a wear strip is routine aircraft
maintenance and is not considered a safety issue affecting operation or flight. John Taylor
did not follow the manufacturer's recommendations when he fabricated it and decided to use
a piece of titanium, presumably thinking that the much harder and stronger metal would last
longer than the metal recommended by General Electric, the manufacturer
