Comment by frongpik

Moral Mazes describes in detail how this happens. The book explains how managers of all kinds "milked" chemical plants, i.e. deferred maintenance to meet schedules and pocket promos, and then jumped the ship right before the plant collapsed. Boeing was likely no different: a clique of quick-thinking managers figured that they could push for aggressive deadlines, pocket nice promos and bonuses, outsource responsibility via committes of all kinds and jump the ship when the wreck was imminent.

The book even had a solution. These quick-thinking managers avoid responsibility (blame ability) like vampires avoid the sunlight. The corporate could implement a system to track responsibility, so it would follow smart assess in other departments and even other companies, but it of course would never do this because such a system would expose shenanigans of senior management. In theory, a regulator could develop such a responsibility tracking system and enforce it in public companies and federal contractors. That system needs to account for the fact that senior managers are experts in diffusing responsibility.