Or whoever was working on it said "Wait, this plane isn't ready yet" and the people in charge said "we've waited long enough, get it on the runway".

This doesn't excuse the engineer as "just obeying orders". They are making a tradeoff between being ethical and being unemployed/unemployable, which understandably can be a very hard decision, but it's still their decision and they aren't guilt-free if something happens.

MBA-driven decision instead of engineering decision.