Nah, they for sure would have known it was dangerous as the kinetics behavior was already well understood. The article seems to imply that they were aware they

Nah, they for sure would have known it was dangerous as the kinetics behavior was already well understood. The article seems to imply that they were aware they were violating the one-rod stuck rule (and if not, they should have been). The lesson learned was more in operations practice, which is that even if you're careful you shouldn't do this.