[ilaksh]

It may have been an executive that just said to turn off LIDAR for testing. Then the engineer probably mentioned it wasn't ready for live testing, was overruled, did it knowing it wasn't ready, because if he refused he may have been fired.

[bigger_cheese]

One of the things I was taught whilst studying engineering (in Australia) was if you, whilst acting in capacity as a professional engineer certify something knowing it is unsafe then you can be found personally liable.

Likewise if you knowingly observe anyone else in your company breaching safety/regulatory guidelines then as a professionally certified engineer you have a legal responsibility around ethical disclosure.

See: http://www.professionalengineers.org.au/rpeng/ethical-commit...

I do not know how things work in the US but in Australia these rights are protected by law. The company legally can not fire an engineer in this situation.

[tonysdg]

Professional Engineers (note the capital 'E') are protected in the U.S. by such laws.

Professional engineers (note the lowercase 'e') are usually not protected in the U.S. -- they're regular employees whose profession happens to be engineering.