> WTF is up with all the plane crashes after a
> 16-year safety record?

It could just be pure random chance: disasters tend to clump. If you could set your clock or calendar by the occurences of random events, they wouldn't be random. Humans have this endearing tendency to see correlations and assume there must be a causal relationship.

That said, if things are just beginning to fall over, and problems happen on Turnip's watch, it's awfully tempting ....