Given that the problem now appears to have been corrosion around the axle of the wheel causing it to fail while taxiing, it is most unlikely that the cause of the failure happened during that day and after the once-a-day engineering inspection. So why would anyone expect that a pre-flight inspection would have identified this mechanical failure when the once-a-day inspection had not found the problem in the day, days, weeks or even months before the part failed?
I would be asking Mr Purvinas why the members of his Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association had not identified the corrosion and rectified the problem before the part failed, as corrosion is not something that happens so quickly that it is not present at the once-a-day inspection but causes a part to fail before the next once-a-day inspection.
I cannot believe that inspections more regular than once-a-day would have identified this problem.
I expect before all DJ flights one of the pilots does a "walk around" visual inspection of the aircraft. One of the things they will be checking during this walk-around is the condition of the tyres. So if the pilot did not notice the axle was broken during his walk around, and the tug driver did not notice it was broken when disconnecting the towbar after puch-back, then I am led to believe the axle did not actually break until after push-back. So I do not believe a pre-flight inspection of the same type that Mr Purvinas says happens once-a-day would have identified the problem either.
