You know about the missing bolts and whatnot because there is a process for uncovering them. Do you want to guess how many missing bolts auto mechanics leave out when they do car repairs? Nobody knows because nobody is keeping track.
> We know about the bolts because a door blew off a plane mid-flight
We know about the bolts because a door blew off a plane mid-flight and there are reporting requirements when that happens. Then there is an investigation.
When a door falls off a car driving down the road, the driver picks it up and puts it in the trunk and has it reattached or replaced. Whether they even file an insurance claim depends on their deductible and either way nobody is doing a root cause analysis to prevent it from happening again.
It shouldn't take an incident like a panel detaching mid-flight to discover the missing bolts. The processes clearly aren't working very well at Boeing.
