Flight readiness firings have been required in the past for new shuttles only, except for one time when a malfunction made a retest necessary.
They tested perfectly the day before but now flop in a retest.
Twelve took the retest and passed with either perfect scores of 5 or near perfect scores of 4.
He singled out the Collins & Aikman personnel who first tipped Wickes off to irregularities at the unit, and other individuals who "worked night and day to test and retest" product suspected of being substandard.