[pdonis]

> In the theory of causation, we distinguish between proximate vs. ultimate causality.

Yes, and you have them backwards. "The engineers failed to raise the issue" is a proximate cause, not an ultimate cause. If engineers in your company are failing to raise obvious technical issues, then either you're hiring incompetent engineers, or your corporate culture discourages engineers from speaking up and punishes those who do. Either way, the ultimate cause is a failure of the organization as a whole, which ultimately means its top management, not a failure of the engineers.

[haltingproblem]

How do I have them backwards? The theory attributes ultimate cause to something that is way way in the past. The event is chosen to maximize narrative plausibility. There is no way to verify the narrative or better falsify it.

The theory conveniently exonerates Boeing engineers without any supporting evidence, forget falsification.

[pdonis]

> The theory attributes ultimate cause to something that is way way in the past.

Yes, that's what "ultimate" cause means. Not necessarily way back in the past, but way back in the causal chain. Basically, you keep on asking "what caused that?" until you get to an answer that looks like a reasonable stopping point. Saying "the engineers failed" isn't a reasonable stopping point because the engineers weren't acting in isolation or on their own; they were acting as part of a larger organization that was not just an organization of engineers. So if they failed, it means the larger organization failed, and you have to look at why that happened to find the ultimate cause.

> The theory conveniently exonerates Boeing engineers

It does no such thing. It is perfectly possible for the engineers to be at fault and for the larger organization of the Boeing corporation to also be at fault. The reason for looking beyond the engineers is not to "exonerate" the engineers, but to make sure that "blame the engineers" does not get used as an excuse to exonerate others who also contributed to the failure and who should be held accountable.