The government is frequently immune from liability. Step 1 is to understand how the system works. The Federal Aviation Administration is charged with safety regulation and enforcement. The National Transportation Safety Board investigates accidents and makes recommendations for changes, but the FAA must adopt its recommendations for anything to happen. Neither is obligated to respond directly to consumers.
Safety becomes akin to a stack of Swiss cheese.
You can have lots of holes, but when you stack up all the pieces, the holes don't line up, so usually nothing falls through. It was only a recommendation or a service bulletin, not mandatory. It was corrected on the military version of the plane, but not its civilian counterpart. Somehow, we have the uneasy feeling that passengers' safety is not always paramount. But we are a nation of self-help and consumer activism.