well hypotheticals without a concrete example are not much use, I'm left to speculate that they told the engineer either we shoot and eat this baby, or you hide the flag and they heroically hid the flag.

But until I get a confirmation on this unselfish act I'm gonna go with probably didn't think much about it and took the next ticket on his list.

Which hey. I'm not on a high enough horse here to berate the guy, but not on a low enough horse to speculate how noble he must be in secret. (excuse the gender specific pronouns)