I'm sure the top leadership was well aware of what happened after the first crash yes. They should have immediately gone public and would have prevented the second crash.

Don't forget that hiding MCAS from pilots and the FAA was a conscious decision. It wasn't something that 'just happened'. The decision to not make it depend on redundant AoA sensors by default too.

My point is, I can imagine that the MCAS suicidal side-effect was something unexpected (it was a technical failure edge-case in a specific and rare scenario) and I get that not anticipating it could have been a mistake, not a conscious decision. But after the first crash they should have owned up to it and not waited for a second crash.

> Since corporations aren't people, Boeing didn't know anything.

you have to recognize that a statement like this means that decision-makers at boeing either knew or were negligent in their duties.

Which is a hell of a thing to say without evidence.

After the first crash they knew for sure. Yet they didn't do anything to prevent the second one.

Before the first one yeah, you could claim that they might have had no idea this could possibly happen. I don't think that is the case but ok. The second crash however really shouldn't have happened.

i can’t think of another option without giving them more credit than they deserve.

A drunk driver doesn't get to claim that they didn't know someone was in front of their car.