It does not matter if the you have the best engineers in the world as long management's primary concern is not flawless designs, from an engineering pov, but striking a balance between that and some unrelated economic measure. When it comes to safety, such compromises are always /very/ dangerous.

I would think the people who designed the space shuttle's rocket boosters weren't clowns either. Didn't prevent http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disast... from happening.