Judah wrote:
"Robert M. Gary" wrote in
oups.com:
I also can't imagine that a FSDO inspector simply walked up to the plane
and randomly opened an inspection panel and found a loose bell crank. Could
it be that there was some other symptom that caused the inspector to draw
his attention there? Perhaps this symptom should have been noticed by a
pilot and especially a CFI?

No, the FSDO does onsite inspections of all FBO's in the district at
least once every two years. Sometimes its a paperwork inspection, other
times they pick a couple of airplanes and disassemble them. I spoke
with several FBOs about this and they had all had this inspection done
at least once. Some did better than others. At some point I think the
FSDO is going to require all CFI's to have a valid IA certificate
before they can instruct.

-Robert