I found this http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/26/us/dogged-engineer-s-effort-to-assess-shuttle-damage.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm (from 2003) where we get some more details about how the engineers and Mr. Rocha organized themselves prior to the accident. One comment describing Mr. Rocha caught my attention :

“he was too nice about it, because he’s a gentleman; he didn’t get nasty about the problem.”

Mr. Rocha followed the rules, the framework established at NASA and did not want to break the chain of command. Could it be that the engineers chose a wrong person for the task of representing them? Someone who was too scared about his reputation?

The peculiar thing is that Mr. Rocha was actually capable of that and bypassed his managers later on during the investigations when the engineers were accused of not “Speaking up”. So why couldn’t he do it in the first place?

I think the “culture” was used in this case as an excuse to avoid pointing out the ones who are accountable for this tragedy. The kind of culture as the Columbia case describes can be found in many companies around the world and anyone who has a critical piece of information should do whatever it takes to deliver the message.