If you think about it, the impact's more pervasive and serious than that. Even simply saying, "hey, isn't there a potential issue with this bolt" shifts the appearance of blame on the person who's asking. When something does go wrong, the lawyer-attitude types can point to your words, and say "look: they were aware of possibility X at time Y, and they failed to stop it. They were negligent". "If you raised issue A, why then did you fail to take actions B, C, and D, and document them appropriately? You were negligent". To discuss Issue A is high-friction and risky -- for all values of A.
That's at the core of legal culture: "don't put it in writing"; "don't talk to the opposing counsel"; "don't make public statements unless we vetted them (to be as vague as possible)". Opacity. What aspect of human nature underlies this? It's this: blame is nebulous, and it attaches to whatever's most visible. Guileless honesty is a *hazard* in a culture of suspicion.
Obviously that's the exact opposite of you want from an engineering culture! You want anyone to be able to raise issues freely, fearlessly. Else it's not effective.
That's the true cost of a blaming-people culture. You're not merely disincentivizing communication the very final stage ("cover up the disaster"); you disincentivize all communication about risk, at any time. Anything that places you visibly closer to responsibility is a peril.
Naturally HN often has me doing laps on the ceiling.
It was extremely likely no one would have found it for years anyway.