[throwaway427]

I listened to this interview and it's interesting the way you put it:

Steve Inskeep rephrases a statement that Goelz makes to make it seem like the FAA is short staffed and that airline compliance is on the honor system.

Goelz then says what he means is that there cannot be an independent FAA inspector in every single corner of a manufacturer or maintenance shop, but by then it's too late because the seed has been planted listeners mind.

So here you are saying the "FAA and NTSB just doesn't have the resources to provide adequate inspections" and that the overall compliance model here is "cooperative self regulation" which... I guess barring the FAA having a 1:1 staff for every employee in the airline industry we are indeed going to have "cooperative self regulation".