I must say, at least for me personally when I hear about such levels of incompetence it rings alarm bells in my head making me think that maybe intentional malice was involved. Like someone higher up had set up the whole thing to happen in such a matter because there was a benefit to this happening we are unaware of. I think this belief maybe stems from lack of imagination on how really stupid humans can get.
My guess would be that either he felt it was such a monumental cockup that he had to off himself or his bosses thought it was such a monumental cockup that they had to off him.