That 182 sounded a bit like the 172 that picked me up at Memphis once. It was the flying school hack and looked like it already crashed. The plastic panel cover kept coming loose and falling onto the yoke. It smelled funny and made odd noises. But it flew.
I would step off a plane but then I'm a pilot and have worked in aircraft maintenance so I know what to look for. I remember once helping an aircraft engineer to tape up a false work panel with duct tape (200 mph tape!!!) on the wing of a 727 as people boarded. We got some funny looks. But it was quite safe. Many an aeroplane has flown with lots of duct tape holding something in place.
Sparks,
Ryanair may be a lot of things but maintenance is not one of their bad points. They have some scruffy and old 732's. But they are being retired now and replaced by brand new -800's. But I remember one story from a Ryanair pilot I knew. A First Officer was doing a pre-flight at night, when he noticed something odd about one of the wheels. He couldn't quite figure out what it was. But when he went back to the flight deck the Captain was chuckling. He had heard on the radio that someone had lost a whole brake assembly on the runway. 'Ah' says the FO, 'I think I know who lost it'.
. I don't fly Ryanair either but for other reasons like overbooking a flight and then closing it while you're in the queue to check in and making you pay extra for the next flight. Screwing you at every opportunity for extra money and for the way they've begun to treat the pilots. Which is the scary part.
The truth is most western airlines are quite safe. It's when you go to the third world airlines you have to watch out.
