Crichton was the same guy who "warned" the world about the dangers of metal fatigue in Airframe, with the underlying tenet that the engineers were too stupid to notice.
Rather insulting to an airframer (at the time, a group which included me), especially as every engineer in the aviation world had known about the dangers of metal fatigue since this report. I didn't notice Crichton's name in the list of investigators.
Early in my career I worked with one of the engineers responsible for fixing the Comet, and by extension, keeping 707's and DC-8's from having the same problem.
Information about American English usage here and here. Floating point issues? Please read this before posting. — emc