If you’ve ever retrieved an aircraft from a maintenance shop you probably sat up a little straighter in the seat on that first takeoff run. If you haven’t, your mind is not in the right place.
Maintenance can—as the NTSB reports consistently prove—introduce another layer of risk that goes with the territory of wrenching an aircraft. Whether it’s infant mortality of replaced components or improper installation and reassembly, face the fact that the chances of a mechanical problem might be considerably higher after a maintenance event.