Airliners are not a Heroku dyno that you can "push code" into. There aren't APIs you can call, pull requests or Docker containers. We're not talking about a webserver or a couple of rails apps. We're talking about stuff being physically separated, non TCP, non IP, non Ethernet, uni-directional connectivity. Your OSI model doesn't apply here. Your API command list doesn't apply here. Your very notion of networking doesn't apply here. This is not about releasing early and iterating. We're talking about systems with a lot of redundancy and actual physical backups where efficiency is not an issue. The devops mentality does not work in this case.
If true, he also risked the lives of everyone else on that plane. That's not ballsy, it's selfish and dangerous. If proven true, what he needs is a "timeout" at one of our country's many penal institutions.
I mean, I've released bugs to production before, but they have never put my life at risk...