David Cartwright wrote:

The hierarchic structure is not there to allow the guy on the ground to
trust that everything will be OK. In this case it's there to solve the
problem of someone saying: "Sorry guys, I can't operate this as I don't
think I can do so safely".

You're absolutely correct. But then, there's such a thing which we call
in German "corporate culture" (translated, I don't know if this is the
correct term in English). You grow up and live in a certain corporate
culture and it's very difficult if not impossible to resist. It's the
responsibility of the managers to create a safe corporate culture. In
this case, one man operations at two workstations at night were SOP.
It's asking very much to second guess the SOP.

Stefan