The future of realtime Linux in doubt

Sounds like a problem I had with my Jeep. There's a sensor which detects where the camshaft is to know when to fire the right spark plug. The wire from it shorted on the engine block and rather than firing willy-nilly (and destroying some pistons and/or chambers), it just stopped firing which basically shuts the vehicle off. Granted, there was probably very little ECU involvement here (it is a 1989 after all), but failure modes are important.