Ethics in aviation 

Ethics in aviation is critical in the flight of any aircraft. It influences every aspect of aircraft maintenance and operations. Unethical behavior can have catastrophic effects in aviation. Take for example the crash of N612AZ a S-61 helicopter on the Iron 44 fire in northern California. "The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable causes of this accident were the following actions by Carson Helicopters: 1) the intentional understatement of the helicopter's empty weight, 2) the alteration of the power available chart to exaggerate the helicopter's lift capability, and 3) the practice of using unapproved above-minimum specification torque in performance calculations that, collectively, resulted in the pilots relying on performance calculations that significantly overestimated the helicopter's load-carrying capacity and did not provide an adequate performance margin for a successful takeoff; and insufficient oversight by the USFS and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)."https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Pages/AAR1006.aspx. Most can imagine that it was financially motivated since the large funding that is utilized for fire season. The former vice president was sentenced to 12.5 years in federal prison for his involvement in this crash. When ethics isn't applied to the performance of maintenance correctly catastrophic effects can occur. Take for instance N2969 flight 101,"The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of this accident was the in-flight failure and separation of the right wing during normal flight, which resulted from (1) the failure of the Chalk’s Ocean Airways maintenance program to identify and properly repair fatigue cracks in the right wing and (2) the failure of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to detect and correct deficiencies in the company’s maintenance program" https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Pages/AAR0704.aspx. The ethical decision of doing the right thing in aviation can be a life or death choice. I have seen it many times over the years and I attribute decisions that are made by greed or laziness eventually lead to people death. The greed of lying on performance charts and weight balance to be able to attain fire or contracts or to technicians pencil whipping inspections they don't want to do.