>But is there any shred of doubt that no one, including the greediest most-souless bureaucrat, actually tried to make an airplane crash and kill people?

This is not taking into account how humans are. People raise their children really badly all the time even though they know what they are doing is bad but they just don't care in the moment. Who wants a bad child? But they still make all the mistakes and end up producing bad children. Incompetence and malice are often nearly identical.