There's also a class of mistake, which I suppose the one discussed here belonged to, that's a combination of 'honest mistake' of a person along with a failure of the system to capture it in time. If it is known that a mistake in e.g. an update process can affect millions of users, a system should be set up to capture those before they have a chance to do real-world damage. Maybe a second person in another team should sign off update changes, etc. Lack of such a system may be considered not-so-honest mistake of senior management. Sadly, some companies design systems preventing (knowledge of) mistakes from getting out instead.