"Boisjoly and four other engineers tried desperately to convince management that the launch should be scrubbed. They warned that the cold would cause rubber o-rings to become brittle and fail, allowing hot gases to leak at the joints. Morton Thiokol and NASA managers dismissed the arguments, and decided to go ahead with the launch.
The next day, Challenger lifted off from its pad at Kennedy Space Center. At first, the launch appeared normal, but 73 seconds into flight the shuttle exploded, sending fragments arcing across the bright Florida sky. In view of a horrified public, including thousands of schoolchildren watching a live broadcast, seven astronauts plummeted to their deaths in the Atlantic ocean."
You might want to read the full article:
https://whistleblowing.us/2012/02/remembering-roger-m-boisjo...
As for Congress blaming "the engineers."
Virtually all American whistle blowers lose their jobs and are placed on a banned list. They are branded traitors and conveniently become sexual predators, rapists and pedophiles. From the ensuing manhunt, you'd think the whistle blower's the head of a terrorist organization. It's straight to prison if they are caught. And a constant looking over their shoulders if they escape the country.
But "management", the guys who actually did something illegal? Life goes on uninterrupted,... retire and become an amazon director.
Knowing the risk involved, how can anyone expect any rational engineer to leak stuff?
If not a single Boeing executive goes to prison for this, then this exercise is a sham, looking for helpless scapegoats to salvage the company's reputation and reduce its loss of plane orders.