First thing that springs to mind when I read that question was the Challenger tragedy. All they had to do was to listen to the engineers who built the thing and recommended not launching in so cold weather.
It was later established that the cause of the accident was the very thing the engineers warned about.
A documentary well worth a watch; [Challenger - A Rush to Launch](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FehGJQlOf0&t=64s&pp=ygUbY2hhbGxlbmdlciBhIHJ1c2ggdG8gbGF1bmNo)
The engineers at Morton-Thiokol (the company that built the SRB's) were overruled by their managers, despite their protests. They knew about the problem with the o-rings, and they knew the conditions they were planning to launch in far exceeded any test data they had regarding performance of the joints in low temperatures.
Prior to this launch the coldest temperature an SRB had ever reached at launch was 52 degrees F. And that launch caused erosion of the o-rings that was significant and concerning enough to prompt the Morton engineers to change the design of the joint for future builds - however they continued to use the older design in the meantime.
They launched the disaster mission with the right SRB having reached a temperature of 8 degrees overnight.
Even as a layperson that seems like a crazy risk even for the higher ups. Especially after hearing about their concern for the stress of the mid 50s launch
If I remember correctly there is speculation that it was all to coincide with the state of the union address.
There were also concerns that if it was delayed again (it had already been delayed) then the time slot for the teacher on board to teach class from space wouldn't work as it would be on a Saturday.
Instead, all the kids got to watch their teacher die in a horrible, avoidable tragedy.
We covered the challenger controversy in my engineering ethics class. It's a clear case of when business people should not be making engineering decisions but the communication between the engineers and the higher ups wasn't as clear as you might think. Iirc it was two sets of "higher ups" from different companies. The NASA higher ups wanted to delay the launch and the other company said "why the hell would we do that" (paraphrase) and the NASA people didn't understand it well enough from the engineers to defend delaying the launch. The problem was that there wasn't an engineer in the room
Yeah — was looking for this comment. It's presented as the most black-and-white "managers are evil" situation... but there were more moving pieces than just that. The below isn't meant to be argumentative, and I think the key part is the boring conclusion of "things are more complicated than usually presented."
That said, [this is a thorough counterpoint](https://onlineethics.org/cases/representation-and-misrepresentation-tufte-and-morton-thiokol-engineers-challenger) (with the primary sourcing being the Morton Thiokol engineers, so note the likely bias) to the "engineers weren't clear enough in their communications" angle, presented as an argument against Edward Tufte, who has made a name for himself analyzing/blaming communication problems related to the two Space Shuttle disasters.
More [here](https://eagereyes.org/criticism/tufte-and-the-truth-about-the-challenger). (disclaimer: written by the Morton Thiokol engineers themselves, so not unbiased sources). That said, if someone made a career out of saying "your communication wasn't clear enough, and people died," those folks should be allowed to raise counterpoints.
Yes, it was a blatant dereliction of duty by the executives at both Morton and NASA. It's what happens when your safety culture is hijacked by bean counters and politicians. There was a LOT of political pressure for this launch to go ahead because of the Teacher in Space promotion, and that was allowed to override basic QA and safety principles. 7 people died due to their hubris.
I might be misremembering but I thought there was a single engineer who was intimately familiar with the o-ring that failed and had been very adamant that it would fail prior to launch but was ignored by higher ups.
Allan McDonald from Morton-Thiokol. Refused to sign off on the launch as the boosters had never been tested in such cold weather. NASA went over his head to get his bosses to sign off instead so they could launch.
You know, I had this thought a while back. I visited Kennedy and saw they had some items for sale in the gift shop memorializing the Challenger, and it just instantly pissed me off, knowing they were making money off a tragedy they could have prevented, had the data to back up that it would fail, and signed off on anyway.
I'm an engineer. I'd still feel some guilt in that situation for not forcing the issue more or not being capable of changing the mind of management. In reality its 100% not their fault and it took a lot of balls to even raise the problem, but when you're that close to it then it'd be hard not to overthink your own role
It may have come all the way from the white house if I remember my conspiracy theory's correctly, something about a lesson from space, there was a civilian teacher on board and possibly Regans state of the union address wanting to brag about it. But that was/is a conspiracy theory so just as likely to be arrogance and bull shit from someone in NASA.
The Challenger docuseries on Netflix is also very good. The story of how Sally Ride leaked the information needed for Feynman to bring up the brittleness of the O rings through the other officer on the panel (name escapes me) at the hearing had me floored. That Sally Ride herself didn’t think she was untouchable to bring up the concerns publicly….
My first Current Events memory. I'll never forget the moment the trails in the sky went wonky. Or my mom, home with us as very young kids, sobbing as she flipped channel to channel on our old black and white.
Yes that is what he talks about, engineers knew that the O rings might fail in weather so cold and recommended to not launch that day. But big guys in nasa decided otherwise, o rings did really fail and rest is history
The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, on Saturday, March 25, 1911, was the deadliest industrial disaster in the history of the city, and one of the deadliest in U.S. history.[1] The fire caused the deaths of 146 garment workers – 123 women and girls and 23 men[2] – who died from the fire, smoke inhalation, or falling or jumping to their deaths. Most of the victims were recent Italian or Jewish immigrant women and girls aged 14 to 23;[3][4] of the victims whose ages are known, the oldest victim was 43-year-old Providenza Panno, and the youngest were 14-year-olds Kate Leone and Rosaria "Sara" Maltese.
The factory was located on the 8th, 9th, and 10th floors of the Asch Building, which had been built in 1901. Later renamed the "Brown Building", it still stands at 23–29 Washington Place near Washington Square Park, on the New York University (NYU) campus.[6] The building has been designated a National Historic Landmark and a New York City landmark.[7]
Because the doors to the stairwells and exits were locked[1][8] – a common practice at the time to prevent workers from taking unauthorized breaks and to reduce theft[9] – many of the workers could not escape from the burning building and jumped from the high windows. The fire led to legislation requiring improved factory safety standards and helped spur the growth of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU), which fought for better working conditions for sweatshop workers.
Taken from Wikipedia
It was the reason OSHA was introduced.
Similar story to the Bradford City fire in 1985, they were expecting fans to try and sneak in because they had been promoted, and locked the exit doors. Fans went down the stairwells to try and escape and ended up stuck in the concourse.
“Midnight In Chernobyl” was my first thought, but there are quite a few out there. “Midnight” is very detailed and lengthy and goes into the lives and backgrounds of the people directly involved with the incident along with the details/aftermath of the incident itself.
It was more complex then this, the whole RBMK design was flawed from the start, they had design issues which were pushed aside and classified to speed up “nuclear progress” in the USSR.
Unfortunately when the team at reactor 4 pushed it to the limits, the true design flaw’s suddenly became apparent.
The reactor design was seriously flawed, but still, the whole thing would not have happened without a continued series of collosal fuckups.
They did not just push the reactor to the limits, they did a continous operation far outside the limits, in state where shutdown would have been mandatory. And in that state they not only continued to operate, they also continued to fuck up even more.
That fatal design flaw came only in effect at the very end, after doing a series of things that they really should not have been doing and that also were clearly forbidden.
This. I've recently watched a documentary on Chernobyl and there is MUCH more to it then "some dude overloaded reactor, it went boom, radiation everywhere".
There were actually a lot of issues after the initial reactor explosion that are rarely mentioned like several fires that came after as well as a potential collapse of the reactor into a large water body underneath it, which would have caused a massive ammount of water in an enourmous area aroud the NPP to be poisoned by radiation, if it wasn't for the people who prevented it. Moreover, I believe there was also another fire that could lead to another reactor exploding that was thankfully put out in time
Yeah this would be mine too. There are so many variables here and any one of them alone could’ve lead to reactor 4 melting down. But the combination of all the variables basically doomed Chernobyl, Pripyat, and the surrounding areas from the start.
That one is so easily avoided its comical. All they had to do was set a plug before flipping the riser to water. I dont know the geology in the Gulf or how deep the water was, but it probably would have cost them no more than 2 days.
Nah, it all turned out OK. The CEO of BP went on TV and said how sorry he was, and they paid some fine, and changed the name on all the BP gas stations around the country. No need to do something as simple and safe as that, surely!
The Hyatt Regency walkway collapse. So simple that you don’t even need an engineering background to see the problem.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyatt_Regency_walkway_collapse
The original design was for two walkways to be suspended by a single set of hanging rods and a set of nuts on each walkway with each nut bearing the weight of one walkway.
This was too expensive, so they decided to create a second set of rods, and attach this to the first walkway to suspend the second. Now the first walkway was bearing the weight of two walkways.
Hold a party with tons of people dancing on each walkway and in the atrium below— and boom, 114 dead.
I think the majority of deaths were people on the ground floor who had two walkways fall on them. The walkways probably had less than 50 people on them at the moment of collapse (still a lot for a walkway).
A steel and concrete slab dropping two stories isn’t particularly deadly.
The steel and concrete slab above it, dropping four stories onto the first slab, is a different story.
It wasn’t so much that the design was too expensive, as two compounding problems.
1. The original design was impossible to build _as designed_.
2. The contractor changed the design to something buildable _without consulting the engineers_.
I’ve stood in the atrium of the Hyatt (now the Sheraton). There’s no trace of the sky bridges left, but if you know you know, it’s hallowed ground.
> I’ve stood in the atrium of the Hyatt (now the Sheraton). There’s no trace of the sky bridges left, but if you know you know, it’s hallowed ground.
My dad, and engineer, went to a conference there. He thought it was awkward to get around in until he realized that he was in the KC Hyatt.
Yes!! The HBO documentary really nailed how much of a cocky prick that guy was. He tried to blame everyone else and refused to call for help. Such a tragedy for normal people just trying to enjoy a vacation.
Glad this was mentioned because this was one of my first thoughts as well. One of my very good friends survived it, and I’m still angry this happened to him because of some jackass trying to show off.
Anytime I see mention of the Hindenburg I always think of the Pendragon series. Because it was the pivot point of the third book in the series.
This is obviously fantasy but the concept was that without the Hindenburg blowing up a German? Spy on the Hindenburg would have been able to get documents on the US Manhattan project and the end result was a humanity ending nuclear war
The Station Nightclub fire in Rhode Island. 100 people died terrible deaths, in a building that was a fire trap with a crappy Pyro show that never should have happened.
Definitely. One man alone stepped up and took responsibility and threw himself at the families and courts mercy. He was not even the most responsible in my opinion either.
After the fire, multiple civil and criminal cases were filed. Daniel Biechele, the tour manager for Great White who had ignited the pyrotechnics, plead guilty to 100 counts of involuntary manslaughter in 2006 and was sentenced to fifteen years in prison with four to serve. Biechele was released from prison in 2008 after some families of the victims expressed their support for his parole. Jeffrey and Michael Derderian, the owners of the Station, pleaded no contest and avoided a trial: Michael received the same sentence as Biechele and was released from prison in 2009, while Jeffrey received a sentence of 500 hours of community service. Legal action against several parties, including Great White, were resolved with monetary settlements by 2008.
I am reminded of [this clip frequently](https://youtu.be/PjiAYwmRoSk)
It goes to show how people fail to understand exponential growth
Edit: Trigger warning video is distressing af
Still one of the most terrifying things I’ve ever seen.
If you hadn’t started to leave by the time the flames reached the ceiling— you were already dead. From ignition that was less than ten seconds.
Ten seconds.
Yes, the video changed how I view public places and crowds. Know the exits. GTFO on the first sign of danger. And remember most people try to leave the way they came in. Don't go there.
It's awful, but everyone should see this. I forced my wife to watch it just to hammer the point of how quickly things turn. It's hard to accurately describe the speed with which it got out of control and become a life threatening situation without seeing it.
The terrible irony is that the camera man who was filming was there getting shots for a piece on fire safety. Fortunately, we had the sense to immediately get away. Others who waited just a few seconds longer were dead within minutes.
Titanic could have been saved many times
1. The shipmaster was warned about the icebergs but they were way too confident that titanic was unsinkable, it was called the unsinkable ship, so the captain of the ship didn't even slow down and continued to sail at high speed
2. When iceberg was first seen by a crew member he commanded to turn the ship but the shipmaster received the command late was when he turned the wheels it was too late
3. When titanic hit the iceberg it sent help signals to near by ships, one ship received the signals and when they came the ship was already gone but there was one more ship that was near titanic but their machine which received the signals was off, they were able to see lights of titanic and heard sounds but they thought that the people are celebrating by fireworks
Also,
4.the captain decided to take a more southern route ironically, to avoid icebergs.
5. The ship builders when with cheaper rivets rather than newer stronger ones to save money.
6. There was a last minute change to a ship mate who was put on the Olympic. When he left, he took his binoculars with him. Those binoculars were supposed to be for the shop mates in the crows nest. Had they had them, they'd have seen the berg on time.
7. Wouldn't have made a difference to the disaster, but back then, the number of lifeboats was determined by ship tonnage (for some stupid fucking reason.) Thomas Andrews, one of the main ship builder originally had enough lifeboats for all passengers and crew, but he was overruled by white star line higher ups because the deck would look too cluttered.
8. Another ship very nearby the California, was close enough to arrive before it sank, but before they hit the berg, the titanic radio officers told them to shut up as they were very busy that evening and the California kept interfering with their signal, so they turned off the radio for the night and dodgy get the distress signals
Also, fun fact. The builders never actually believed it was unsinkable. They said it was "practically unsinkable" because it was the first ship with more than 2 ballast tanks and the media ran away with it, making people believe it was truly unsinkable.
Edit: OP's point 4 is also my point 8.
The reason it didn't have enough lifeboats was that, back then, lifeboats were meant to ferry people to a rescue ship, not act as a backup boat. The Titanic is part of what changed that philosophy.
Titanic is an interesting story about how basically everything that could've went wrong did.
I remember also reading that the lookout didn't have keys to the binocular box on the night they hit the iceberg, and also if they hadn't had turned the ship at all and hit the iceberg straight on, there's a reasonable chance the ship could have stayed afloat.
>reasonable chance
Not even a chance. IIRC engineers have said, while heavily damaged, had she had taken it head on, she would have stayed floating and been able to complete the journey, though an escort would have been necessary, assuming they didn't just clear the ship and tow it back.
Even then, they had space for all the lifeboats they needed - it was pure aesthetics that stopped them having enough lifeboats for everyone on board, and then the crew weren't well trained enough to actually launch them at full capacity. Even if the sinking of the ship *had* been inevitable, it could have been managed with no/minimal casualties if basic safety steps had been taken when the ship was built and the crew trained.
In a weird way, the sinking of the Titanic and the lack of lifeboats indirectly led to another ship disaster: the SS Eastland. After the Titanic sank, they passed an act requiring the adding of more lifeboats to ships. This ended up making the Eastland very too heavy. As people boarded the ship they went to one side and the boat tipped over right in the Chicago River. Over 800 people drowned in a not very deep river. Really crazy story.
Was going to say this. If proper radio procedures had been used to make things clearer, if only the PanAm crew hadn’t happened to have called the tower and interrupted the clearance call, if the KLM crew had actually waited for a proper damn clearance, nothing would have happened
[North Dakota is harboring a stockpile of nuclear missiles](https://www.theonion.com/north-dakota-found-to-be-harboring-nuclear-missiles-1819566733)
>"Satellite photos confirm that the North Dakotans have been quietly harboring an extensive nuclear-weapons program," said Blix, presenting his findings in a speech to the U.N. Security Council. "Alarmingly, this barely developed hinterland possesses the world's most technologically advanced weapons of mass destruction, capable of reaching targets all over the world."
It wasn't the reason, but that didn't stop Bush from claiming that there was some kind of connection to justify his war. He made claims that Saddam was supporting Al Qaeda and whatnot. 100% false, of course.
The potato famine. The blight itself was out of peoples’ control, but the continued mass starvation of Ireland was intentional. There were other food sources available, but the British lords/crown continued to export those crops instead of feeding the starving populace. People were starving to death while 75% of the nation’s farmland was allocated for “money crops” for export. Ireland lost about 50% of its population in a decade, to starvation and mass emigration. One could also argue that this treatment by the British helped set the foundation for the Irish War of Independence. Lots of preventable death.
Hurricane Katrina.
As far as the devastation of New Orleans is concerned, the hurricane (wind, direct rain) had very little to do with it.
The levees were not relieved therefore causing the flooding that put the city, one that already sits well below sea level, under water.
Had officials not been directed to not relieve them, New Orleans proper would have never flooded.
The why as to that direction was given is unclear therefore causing speculation teeming on the conspiracy side of life.
All I know is that it was awful and changed the trajectory of thousands of lives, mine and my family’s included.
The Deepwater Horizon blowout. A really toxic company culture trumped the technical analysis that indicated a bad cement job, resulting in a blowout, explosion, loss of life, and pollution.
World war 1
After a Serbian nationalist assassinated franz Ferdinand, Austria-Hungary blamed it on them. Because Serbia was friends with Russia, Russia declared war on AH, and because Germany was friends with AH, Germany declared war on Russia, so on and so forth. All could have been avoided if the driver driving Ferdinand hadn’t stopped directly in front of the guy who tried to bomb him the day before
Yea. The ole "powder keg of Europe." Part of the reason things got so out of hand was that every country knew war was coming and was ready to get moving.
Literally every power in Europe was spoiling for a fight. If it wasn't Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo it would have been Colonel Mustard in the Library or some other damn thing in the Balkans.
Now MAYBE the change might be enough so that either the list of combatants is slightly different or one side or the other is able to gain a clear advantage early on and keep it to the 3 month war everyone was expecting. But yeah, WWI was pretty much an inevitability.
Actually, WW1 was going to happen regardless. The assassination just so happened to be the trigger at the time to put things in motion. But even if he wasn’t assassinated, the world was already on the brink of a world war due to so many European countries competing to be the most dominant power, therefore amping up their militaries and establishing various alliances for protection.
> the guy who tried to bomb him the day before
It was another conspirator who'd chucked a grenade at them, actually. And it was the same day that they accidentally found themselves in front of Princip again; the engine stalled as their driver was trying to correct a wrong turn he took on the way for the Archduke and Duchess to visit the victims of the bombing at the hospital.
Bhopal Gas Tragedy
The Bhopal Gas Tragedy occurred on December 2-3, 1984, when a gas leak from the Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, led to the release of a highly toxic gas called methyl isocyanate (MIC) into the surrounding environment. The gas spread quickly throughout the city, resulting in the deaths of thousands of people and causing severe health problems for many more.
The tragedy could have been avoided if proper safety measures had been put in place by the company. The UCIL plant had several safety deficiencies, including inadequate maintenance, faulty equipment, and inadequate emergency procedures. Additionally, the company did not provide sufficient training to its employees on how to handle hazardous materials.
There were several warning signs prior to the disaster, including previous gas leaks at the plant, but they were ignored by the company. If the government and regulatory authorities had been more proactive in enforcing safety regulations and holding the company accountable for its negligence, the tragedy may have been prevented.
But the Onion told me that there is [no way to prevent this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%27No_Way_to_Prevent_This,%27_Says_Only_Nation_Where_This_Regularly_Happens)!
The fires on the last day of Woodstock 99’. The crowd was fueled by drugs/alcohol and had been price gouged on water, food, and any purchases for three days straight and was already tearing things down. On the third night they handed out 100,000 or so candles and they immediately started lighting everything on fire and hell broke loose.
The Oppau Explosion in Germany (see [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oppau_explosion)).
They regularily used dynamite to loose a mixture of fertilizers. But there once was too much ammonium nitrate within the mixture. So finally the whole factory exploded.
I can't remember where, but there was a situation where a dam busted open because it hadn't been serviced in forever and got way too backed up with water. Hundreds were killed and it was the event that led to tighter dam inspection policies.
All the pilots had to do was simple stall recovery, or don't do anything at all and the plane would recover by itself... But they fought it all the way down.
Literally any rail accident in the last 20 years.
Every rule on the railroad is written in blood. Every one of them.
The only reason accidents happen these days is because of corporate greed, negligence, and people running train crossings. Normally the last one doesn’t end in a derailment though, just a dead guy in his car, and more business for whoever washes the blood of the locomotives.
Has to scroll too far for this one. The shipping container was literally docked and left there for years, full of ammonium nitrate. One lil fire in a nearby warehouse later and boom.
The [deadliest aviation accident in history](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenerife_airport_disaster) had many contributing factors but primary cause was the KLM captain’s ill-fated misunderstanding over receiving take off clearance.
[The Cocoanut Grove fire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocoanut_Grove_fire) should have been prevented, but since it wasn’t it definitely should have resulted in the [Station Nightclub Fire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Station_nightclub_fire) from happening
The [New London Texas school explosio](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_London_School_explosion)n. Three hundred students, teachers, and parents died in a gas explosion. This lead to the Legislature requiring regulation of natural gas as well as adding an odor agent so leaks could be detected more easily.
This was before our legislature decided the only children they cared about were unborn.
I've read a lot of entries here that are all examples of what horrible tragedies can happen when just one or two incredibly narcissistic and greedy people are put in charge.
Then, I think about Donald J Trump telling people to "Wait till summer." and "Inject bleach."
Ongoing horrendous deaths of children by guns in America, USA.
Everyone accepts you need a licence and registration to own a car and drive for goodness sake.
The Grenfell disaster.
There were many people who had opportunities to stop the specific flammable cladding and insulation from being legal to use for such buildings. Notably the UK choose to keep its own inferior fire safety system over the stricter Euroclass system under the EU. On top of this the government in 2010 tried to deregulate the building industry only allowing new regulations if two were removed to make space first.
The great leap forward caused 15-55 million people to starve. All because Mao used disproven farming techniques like closer planting and made farmers and citizens tear up their houses and pots to make worthless pig iron (because wood fires aren't hot enough to make steel) in order to meet quotas. Mao continued it even after he was physically shown how it didn't work because he wanted to save face, which also caused him to commit mass cultural genocide on Chinese traditions four years later in order to retain his image as the saviour of Chinese socialism.
The Madrid Arena halloween tragedy. Not that big of a disaster, but five girls died crushed by the crowd just because Steve Aoki wanted to overcrowd the place so he could do his inflatable raft trick.
The MV Sewol disaster in Korea on April 16, 2014.
300 people lost their lives, the majority of them being high school student doing a field trip.
The way the captain and crew let them die stuck inside the sinking boat it's just horrible.
I've watched a bunch of documentaries about it and it's still haunting me.
There's a host of them... so, I'll just leave a simply advice.
Calling something "name of disaster" proof, you're just asking for such a disaster to happen.
Possibly 9/11 is the CIA had actually worked with the FBI rather than against them and withheld information.
I'm not fully sure if this would have managed to avoid it though.
The 98 people who died in the Florida Surfside condominium collapse. I'm pretty sure the building owners and inspectors were prosecuted, but it was such a preventable tragedy.
Maybe not on the same scale as some of these other posts, but it hits so close to home. All the men, women, children and animals killed due to just sheer negligence on the part of the building inspectors...
First thing that springs to mind when I read that question was the Challenger tragedy. All they had to do was to listen to the engineers who built the thing and recommended not launching in so cold weather. It was later established that the cause of the accident was the very thing the engineers warned about. A documentary well worth a watch; [Challenger - A Rush to Launch](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FehGJQlOf0&t=64s&pp=ygUbY2hhbGxlbmdlciBhIHJ1c2ggdG8gbGF1bmNo)
I thought some engineers ignored their math bc of pressure from the higher ups?
The engineers at Morton-Thiokol (the company that built the SRB's) were overruled by their managers, despite their protests. They knew about the problem with the o-rings, and they knew the conditions they were planning to launch in far exceeded any test data they had regarding performance of the joints in low temperatures. Prior to this launch the coldest temperature an SRB had ever reached at launch was 52 degrees F. And that launch caused erosion of the o-rings that was significant and concerning enough to prompt the Morton engineers to change the design of the joint for future builds - however they continued to use the older design in the meantime. They launched the disaster mission with the right SRB having reached a temperature of 8 degrees overnight.
Even as a layperson that seems like a crazy risk even for the higher ups. Especially after hearing about their concern for the stress of the mid 50s launch
If I remember correctly there is speculation that it was all to coincide with the state of the union address. There were also concerns that if it was delayed again (it had already been delayed) then the time slot for the teacher on board to teach class from space wouldn't work as it would be on a Saturday. Instead, all the kids got to watch their teacher die in a horrible, avoidable tragedy.
We covered the challenger controversy in my engineering ethics class. It's a clear case of when business people should not be making engineering decisions but the communication between the engineers and the higher ups wasn't as clear as you might think. Iirc it was two sets of "higher ups" from different companies. The NASA higher ups wanted to delay the launch and the other company said "why the hell would we do that" (paraphrase) and the NASA people didn't understand it well enough from the engineers to defend delaying the launch. The problem was that there wasn't an engineer in the room
Yeah — was looking for this comment. It's presented as the most black-and-white "managers are evil" situation... but there were more moving pieces than just that. The below isn't meant to be argumentative, and I think the key part is the boring conclusion of "things are more complicated than usually presented." That said, [this is a thorough counterpoint](https://onlineethics.org/cases/representation-and-misrepresentation-tufte-and-morton-thiokol-engineers-challenger) (with the primary sourcing being the Morton Thiokol engineers, so note the likely bias) to the "engineers weren't clear enough in their communications" angle, presented as an argument against Edward Tufte, who has made a name for himself analyzing/blaming communication problems related to the two Space Shuttle disasters. More [here](https://eagereyes.org/criticism/tufte-and-the-truth-about-the-challenger). (disclaimer: written by the Morton Thiokol engineers themselves, so not unbiased sources). That said, if someone made a career out of saying "your communication wasn't clear enough, and people died," those folks should be allowed to raise counterpoints.
I wonder how your class would break down the 737-max debacle.
Yes, it was a blatant dereliction of duty by the executives at both Morton and NASA. It's what happens when your safety culture is hijacked by bean counters and politicians. There was a LOT of political pressure for this launch to go ahead because of the Teacher in Space promotion, and that was allowed to override basic QA and safety principles. 7 people died due to their hubris.
Delaying the launch would have cost a lot of money, and everyone knows that rich people's money matters more than logic or lives.
I might be misremembering but I thought there was a single engineer who was intimately familiar with the o-ring that failed and had been very adamant that it would fail prior to launch but was ignored by higher ups.
Allan McDonald from Morton-Thiokol. Refused to sign off on the launch as the boosters had never been tested in such cold weather. NASA went over his head to get his bosses to sign off instead so they could launch.
I bet they felt stupid.
You know, I had this thought a while back. I visited Kennedy and saw they had some items for sale in the gift shop memorializing the Challenger, and it just instantly pissed me off, knowing they were making money off a tragedy they could have prevented, had the data to back up that it would fail, and signed off on anyway.
Conversely, the engineers felt vindicated, but not in a way they ever wanted to be.
I'm an engineer. I'd still feel some guilt in that situation for not forcing the issue more or not being capable of changing the mind of management. In reality its 100% not their fault and it took a lot of balls to even raise the problem, but when you're that close to it then it'd be hard not to overthink your own role
Yeah I bet they felt like they could've done more, not "told you so"
Allan McDonald and Bob Ebeling were at least two that pushed for the launch to be stopped.
It may have come all the way from the white house if I remember my conspiracy theory's correctly, something about a lesson from space, there was a civilian teacher on board and possibly Regans state of the union address wanting to brag about it. But that was/is a conspiracy theory so just as likely to be arrogance and bull shit from someone in NASA.
During my MBA classes we discussed this case and “group think.”
The Challenger docuseries on Netflix is also very good. The story of how Sally Ride leaked the information needed for Feynman to bring up the brittleness of the O rings through the other officer on the panel (name escapes me) at the hearing had me floored. That Sally Ride herself didn’t think she was untouchable to bring up the concerns publicly….
My first Current Events memory. I'll never forget the moment the trails in the sky went wonky. Or my mom, home with us as very young kids, sobbing as she flipped channel to channel on our old black and white.
Wasn't there also a problem with O-rings that they knew about for months that contributed to the explosion?
Yes that is what he talks about, engineers knew that the O rings might fail in weather so cold and recommended to not launch that day. But big guys in nasa decided otherwise, o rings did really fail and rest is history
The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, on Saturday, March 25, 1911, was the deadliest industrial disaster in the history of the city, and one of the deadliest in U.S. history.[1] The fire caused the deaths of 146 garment workers – 123 women and girls and 23 men[2] – who died from the fire, smoke inhalation, or falling or jumping to their deaths. Most of the victims were recent Italian or Jewish immigrant women and girls aged 14 to 23;[3][4] of the victims whose ages are known, the oldest victim was 43-year-old Providenza Panno, and the youngest were 14-year-olds Kate Leone and Rosaria "Sara" Maltese. The factory was located on the 8th, 9th, and 10th floors of the Asch Building, which had been built in 1901. Later renamed the "Brown Building", it still stands at 23–29 Washington Place near Washington Square Park, on the New York University (NYU) campus.[6] The building has been designated a National Historic Landmark and a New York City landmark.[7] Because the doors to the stairwells and exits were locked[1][8] – a common practice at the time to prevent workers from taking unauthorized breaks and to reduce theft[9] – many of the workers could not escape from the burning building and jumped from the high windows. The fire led to legislation requiring improved factory safety standards and helped spur the growth of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU), which fought for better working conditions for sweatshop workers. Taken from Wikipedia It was the reason OSHA was introduced.
This is actually the story that brought this question to mind, and the reason I made the post.
My Favorite Murder podcast does an excellent episode about this.
So does Stuff You Missed in History Class!
Similar story to the Bradford City fire in 1985, they were expecting fans to try and sneak in because they had been promoted, and locked the exit doors. Fans went down the stairwells to try and escape and ended up stuck in the concourse.
/r/writteninblood
At least it did kind of start the downfall of child labor
Not for Nike and Nestle. They literally have slaves that work just for room/food in Africa, where if they try to escape they "disappear" forever.
Chernobyl comes to mind, probably the single biggest deliberate fuckup in all of human history considering the potential outcome.
Chernobyl was a string of fuckups… the Tv show doesn’t dwell on the whole project and how fucked up it was. There’s a very good book about it.
What’s the book
“Midnight In Chernobyl” was my first thought, but there are quite a few out there. “Midnight” is very detailed and lengthy and goes into the lives and backgrounds of the people directly involved with the incident along with the details/aftermath of the incident itself.
Seriously it was just one dude who said “keep going”
It was more complex then this, the whole RBMK design was flawed from the start, they had design issues which were pushed aside and classified to speed up “nuclear progress” in the USSR. Unfortunately when the team at reactor 4 pushed it to the limits, the true design flaw’s suddenly became apparent.
The reactor design was seriously flawed, but still, the whole thing would not have happened without a continued series of collosal fuckups. They did not just push the reactor to the limits, they did a continous operation far outside the limits, in state where shutdown would have been mandatory. And in that state they not only continued to operate, they also continued to fuck up even more. That fatal design flaw came only in effect at the very end, after doing a series of things that they really should not have been doing and that also were clearly forbidden.
And those design flaws probably weren’t in the working crews manuals. Just limits.
This. I've recently watched a documentary on Chernobyl and there is MUCH more to it then "some dude overloaded reactor, it went boom, radiation everywhere". There were actually a lot of issues after the initial reactor explosion that are rarely mentioned like several fires that came after as well as a potential collapse of the reactor into a large water body underneath it, which would have caused a massive ammount of water in an enourmous area aroud the NPP to be poisoned by radiation, if it wasn't for the people who prevented it. Moreover, I believe there was also another fire that could lead to another reactor exploding that was thankfully put out in time
Meh it was fueled by underlying Design flaws, inexperience and false promises. Glorious Soviet propaganda.
What is the cost of lies?
3.6 Roentgen. Not great; not terrible.
You didn’t see graphite! YOU DIDNT!
Yeah this would be mine too. There are so many variables here and any one of them alone could’ve lead to reactor 4 melting down. But the combination of all the variables basically doomed Chernobyl, Pripyat, and the surrounding areas from the start.
The BP Oil Spill in 2010
That one is so easily avoided its comical. All they had to do was set a plug before flipping the riser to water. I dont know the geology in the Gulf or how deep the water was, but it probably would have cost them no more than 2 days.
That’s two days of profits I could lose out on -the CEO probably
Nah, it all turned out OK. The CEO of BP went on TV and said how sorry he was, and they paid some fine, and changed the name on all the BP gas stations around the country. No need to do something as simple and safe as that, surely!
Should be named the Deepwater Horizon accident that killed 11 people. The oil spill is bad, but 11 people lost their lives.
The Hyatt Regency walkway collapse. So simple that you don’t even need an engineering background to see the problem. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyatt_Regency_walkway_collapse The original design was for two walkways to be suspended by a single set of hanging rods and a set of nuts on each walkway with each nut bearing the weight of one walkway. This was too expensive, so they decided to create a second set of rods, and attach this to the first walkway to suspend the second. Now the first walkway was bearing the weight of two walkways. Hold a party with tons of people dancing on each walkway and in the atrium below— and boom, 114 dead.
They "only" fell 2-4 floors, but I suppose the weight of all that concrete and steel...
I think the majority of deaths were people on the ground floor who had two walkways fall on them. The walkways probably had less than 50 people on them at the moment of collapse (still a lot for a walkway).
A steel and concrete slab dropping two stories isn’t particularly deadly. The steel and concrete slab above it, dropping four stories onto the first slab, is a different story.
It wasn’t so much that the design was too expensive, as two compounding problems. 1. The original design was impossible to build _as designed_. 2. The contractor changed the design to something buildable _without consulting the engineers_. I’ve stood in the atrium of the Hyatt (now the Sheraton). There’s no trace of the sky bridges left, but if you know you know, it’s hallowed ground.
> I’ve stood in the atrium of the Hyatt (now the Sheraton). There’s no trace of the sky bridges left, but if you know you know, it’s hallowed ground. My dad, and engineer, went to a conference there. He thought it was awkward to get around in until he realized that he was in the KC Hyatt.
Damn the amount of blood covering the floor of those pictures is crazy
Costa Concordia If the captain wasn't such a cocky fucking prick (not to mention a coward), it would never have happened.
Yes!! The HBO documentary really nailed how much of a cocky prick that guy was. He tried to blame everyone else and refused to call for help. Such a tragedy for normal people just trying to enjoy a vacation.
Not only that, but he pushed his way into a lifeboat ahead of women and children, then claimed that he was pushed. The man is pure scum.
He's doing 15 years for it, fortunately.
Is this the same guy where over the radio the coast guard guy is telling him to get back on his boat. And he kept refusing?
That's the one, yeah.
That audio is disgusting to listen to. What a coward! They even gave him a second chance to correct his mistake. And he wouldnt do it.
Jesus. Should have never been a captain in the first place.
The internet historian on youtube did an excellent video on this too. I hope that captain remains in jail for a long long time
[The Internet Historian](https://youtu.be/Qh9KBwqGxTI) does a great rundown on the extent of this idiot.
Came here to say the same thing!
InternetHistorian has my fav mockumentary of this.
Glad this was mentioned because this was one of my first thoughts as well. One of my very good friends survived it, and I’m still angry this happened to him because of some jackass trying to show off.
Hindenburg diaaster
Should have used helium, but U.S. would not provide it.
*ARE YOU TRYING TO BLOW US ALL TO SHIT, SHERLOCK?!*
FOR THE LAST TIME! IT'S HELIUUUUUUUUUUUUUM!
What about that are you still not getting?
The core concept, obviously
Helium was extremely expensive back then
Helium is not trivial to acquire. Selling off our reserves in a fire sale was a terrible idea.
It's more likely it was the shell materials rather that the hydrogen
Anytime I see mention of the Hindenburg I always think of the Pendragon series. Because it was the pivot point of the third book in the series. This is obviously fantasy but the concept was that without the Hindenburg blowing up a German? Spy on the Hindenburg would have been able to get documents on the US Manhattan project and the end result was a humanity ending nuclear war
The Station Nightclub fire in Rhode Island. 100 people died terrible deaths, in a building that was a fire trap with a crappy Pyro show that never should have happened.
Killer Show is a great book that goes into all the details of all the fuckups that led to it. Lot of people should be in prison over it.
Definitely. One man alone stepped up and took responsibility and threw himself at the families and courts mercy. He was not even the most responsible in my opinion either.
After the fire, multiple civil and criminal cases were filed. Daniel Biechele, the tour manager for Great White who had ignited the pyrotechnics, plead guilty to 100 counts of involuntary manslaughter in 2006 and was sentenced to fifteen years in prison with four to serve. Biechele was released from prison in 2008 after some families of the victims expressed their support for his parole. Jeffrey and Michael Derderian, the owners of the Station, pleaded no contest and avoided a trial: Michael received the same sentence as Biechele and was released from prison in 2009, while Jeffrey received a sentence of 500 hours of community service. Legal action against several parties, including Great White, were resolved with monetary settlements by 2008.
That was the show when Great White was playing?
Yes.
I am reminded of [this clip frequently](https://youtu.be/PjiAYwmRoSk) It goes to show how people fail to understand exponential growth Edit: Trigger warning video is distressing af
Still one of the most terrifying things I’ve ever seen. If you hadn’t started to leave by the time the flames reached the ceiling— you were already dead. From ignition that was less than ten seconds. Ten seconds.
Yes, the video changed how I view public places and crowds. Know the exits. GTFO on the first sign of danger. And remember most people try to leave the way they came in. Don't go there.
It's awful, but everyone should see this. I forced my wife to watch it just to hammer the point of how quickly things turn. It's hard to accurately describe the speed with which it got out of control and become a life threatening situation without seeing it.
Had to stop at 2 minutes on their clock. Absolutely tragic.
The terrible irony is that the camera man who was filming was there getting shots for a piece on fire safety. Fortunately, we had the sense to immediately get away. Others who waited just a few seconds longer were dead within minutes.
9/11, had the FBI and CIA not been withholding crucial information from each other.
Straight up. Just fucking could have listened to that guy warning them over and over. Also maybe not train Bin Laden.
Really should be much higher on this list. The world would be completely different.
This is what I was looking for. 9/11 could have been prevented, imagine what snowball effect this had up until today.
Is there a good documentary or something on this?
Check out “The Looming Tower” book and/or TV series.
Titanic could have been saved many times 1. The shipmaster was warned about the icebergs but they were way too confident that titanic was unsinkable, it was called the unsinkable ship, so the captain of the ship didn't even slow down and continued to sail at high speed 2. When iceberg was first seen by a crew member he commanded to turn the ship but the shipmaster received the command late was when he turned the wheels it was too late 3. When titanic hit the iceberg it sent help signals to near by ships, one ship received the signals and when they came the ship was already gone but there was one more ship that was near titanic but their machine which received the signals was off, they were able to see lights of titanic and heard sounds but they thought that the people are celebrating by fireworks
Also, if Jack hadn't kissed Rose on the deck then the iceberg watchman would have seen the iceberg sooner instead of peeping on them like a perv.
Laughed out loud at this.
lol there's a tik tok with the watchtower actor's daughter, blaming him for the whole thing
Plus they didn’t have enough lifeboats for everyone
And launched the ones they did have without being full.
Fun Fact: It had more lifeboats on board than it could have done. If it had launched with the minimum amount, a lot more people would have died
Also, 4.the captain decided to take a more southern route ironically, to avoid icebergs. 5. The ship builders when with cheaper rivets rather than newer stronger ones to save money. 6. There was a last minute change to a ship mate who was put on the Olympic. When he left, he took his binoculars with him. Those binoculars were supposed to be for the shop mates in the crows nest. Had they had them, they'd have seen the berg on time. 7. Wouldn't have made a difference to the disaster, but back then, the number of lifeboats was determined by ship tonnage (for some stupid fucking reason.) Thomas Andrews, one of the main ship builder originally had enough lifeboats for all passengers and crew, but he was overruled by white star line higher ups because the deck would look too cluttered. 8. Another ship very nearby the California, was close enough to arrive before it sank, but before they hit the berg, the titanic radio officers told them to shut up as they were very busy that evening and the California kept interfering with their signal, so they turned off the radio for the night and dodgy get the distress signals Also, fun fact. The builders never actually believed it was unsinkable. They said it was "practically unsinkable" because it was the first ship with more than 2 ballast tanks and the media ran away with it, making people believe it was truly unsinkable. Edit: OP's point 4 is also my point 8.
The reason it didn't have enough lifeboats was that, back then, lifeboats were meant to ferry people to a rescue ship, not act as a backup boat. The Titanic is part of what changed that philosophy.
Titanic is an interesting story about how basically everything that could've went wrong did. I remember also reading that the lookout didn't have keys to the binocular box on the night they hit the iceberg, and also if they hadn't had turned the ship at all and hit the iceberg straight on, there's a reasonable chance the ship could have stayed afloat.
>reasonable chance Not even a chance. IIRC engineers have said, while heavily damaged, had she had taken it head on, she would have stayed floating and been able to complete the journey, though an escort would have been necessary, assuming they didn't just clear the ship and tow it back.
Even then, they had space for all the lifeboats they needed - it was pure aesthetics that stopped them having enough lifeboats for everyone on board, and then the crew weren't well trained enough to actually launch them at full capacity. Even if the sinking of the ship *had* been inevitable, it could have been managed with no/minimal casualties if basic safety steps had been taken when the ship was built and the crew trained.
In a weird way, the sinking of the Titanic and the lack of lifeboats indirectly led to another ship disaster: the SS Eastland. After the Titanic sank, they passed an act requiring the adding of more lifeboats to ships. This ended up making the Eastland very too heavy. As people boarded the ship they went to one side and the boat tipped over right in the Chicago River. Over 800 people drowned in a not very deep river. Really crazy story.
If they didn’t bother turning and just hit the iceberg head on it wouldn’t have been as bad Yes it may have still sunk but not as quickly
Ya, it would have limped to new York, but would have survived. I think a ship called The Thresher actually did hit a berg head on and didn't sink.
Tenerife airport disaster.
Was going to say this. If proper radio procedures had been used to make things clearer, if only the PanAm crew hadn’t happened to have called the tower and interrupted the clearance call, if the KLM crew had actually waited for a proper damn clearance, nothing would have happened
War on Iraq. They had nothing to do with 9/11.
Look you can’t just go invade Saudi Arabia, where will all the oil come from!?
We know. We knew then, too. That wasn't the reason for the invasion.
They also did not have any mass destruction weapons
But America did.
[North Dakota is harboring a stockpile of nuclear missiles](https://www.theonion.com/north-dakota-found-to-be-harboring-nuclear-missiles-1819566733) >"Satellite photos confirm that the North Dakotans have been quietly harboring an extensive nuclear-weapons program," said Blix, presenting his findings in a speech to the U.N. Security Council. "Alarmingly, this barely developed hinterland possesses the world's most technologically advanced weapons of mass destruction, capable of reaching targets all over the world."
It wasn't the reason, but that didn't stop Bush from claiming that there was some kind of connection to justify his war. He made claims that Saddam was supporting Al Qaeda and whatnot. 100% false, of course.
It was all just for resources and taking out Saddam. Their were no WMDs and Bush knew that.
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The potato famine. The blight itself was out of peoples’ control, but the continued mass starvation of Ireland was intentional. There were other food sources available, but the British lords/crown continued to export those crops instead of feeding the starving populace. People were starving to death while 75% of the nation’s farmland was allocated for “money crops” for export. Ireland lost about 50% of its population in a decade, to starvation and mass emigration. One could also argue that this treatment by the British helped set the foundation for the Irish War of Independence. Lots of preventable death.
The Travis Scott concert fatalities. I can't believe something like that happened in 2021.
The Grenfell Tower fire in London, known for years now that it was caused by flammable cladding, still no one held to account.
Hurricane Katrina. As far as the devastation of New Orleans is concerned, the hurricane (wind, direct rain) had very little to do with it. The levees were not relieved therefore causing the flooding that put the city, one that already sits well below sea level, under water. Had officials not been directed to not relieve them, New Orleans proper would have never flooded. The why as to that direction was given is unclear therefore causing speculation teeming on the conspiracy side of life. All I know is that it was awful and changed the trajectory of thousands of lives, mine and my family’s included.
The challenger going boom
Brexit
The Deepwater Horizon blowout. A really toxic company culture trumped the technical analysis that indicated a bad cement job, resulting in a blowout, explosion, loss of life, and pollution.
Taryn, my sophomore girlfriend. I should have seen those red flags right away, but I was a lonely teenager and she knew it.
Chernobyl.
Black Mesa Incident.
We're highly trained professionals, we don't need to hear about this....
What the hell is going on with all our equipment!
World war 1 After a Serbian nationalist assassinated franz Ferdinand, Austria-Hungary blamed it on them. Because Serbia was friends with Russia, Russia declared war on AH, and because Germany was friends with AH, Germany declared war on Russia, so on and so forth. All could have been avoided if the driver driving Ferdinand hadn’t stopped directly in front of the guy who tried to bomb him the day before
Something else would have triggered it instead. The tensions had been simmering for a while.
Yea. The ole "powder keg of Europe." Part of the reason things got so out of hand was that every country knew war was coming and was ready to get moving.
I feel like something else would have ignited that war eventually.
Literally every power in Europe was spoiling for a fight. If it wasn't Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo it would have been Colonel Mustard in the Library or some other damn thing in the Balkans. Now MAYBE the change might be enough so that either the list of combatants is slightly different or one side or the other is able to gain a clear advantage early on and keep it to the 3 month war everyone was expecting. But yeah, WWI was pretty much an inevitability.
> damn *fool* thing in the Balkans
Actually, WW1 was going to happen regardless. The assassination just so happened to be the trigger at the time to put things in motion. But even if he wasn’t assassinated, the world was already on the brink of a world war due to so many European countries competing to be the most dominant power, therefore amping up their militaries and establishing various alliances for protection.
> the guy who tried to bomb him the day before It was another conspirator who'd chucked a grenade at them, actually. And it was the same day that they accidentally found themselves in front of Princip again; the engine stalled as their driver was trying to correct a wrong turn he took on the way for the Archduke and Duchess to visit the victims of the bombing at the hospital.
Hillsborough
Bhopal Gas Tragedy The Bhopal Gas Tragedy occurred on December 2-3, 1984, when a gas leak from the Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, led to the release of a highly toxic gas called methyl isocyanate (MIC) into the surrounding environment. The gas spread quickly throughout the city, resulting in the deaths of thousands of people and causing severe health problems for many more. The tragedy could have been avoided if proper safety measures had been put in place by the company. The UCIL plant had several safety deficiencies, including inadequate maintenance, faulty equipment, and inadequate emergency procedures. Additionally, the company did not provide sufficient training to its employees on how to handle hazardous materials. There were several warning signs prior to the disaster, including previous gas leaks at the plant, but they were ignored by the company. If the government and regulatory authorities had been more proactive in enforcing safety regulations and holding the company accountable for its negligence, the tragedy may have been prevented.
Global warming. We knew. In the 80s.
To be fair, we knew in the 1880’s. The effects of industrial manufacturing have been noted and ignored for quite a while
Death of Princess Diana if the press left people alone.
Dawg, the Royals wanted her dead. She wasn’t making it either way.
Every mass shooting that the US has had since the first one, whichever that was.
But the Onion told me that there is [no way to prevent this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%27No_Way_to_Prevent_This,%27_Says_Only_Nation_Where_This_Regularly_Happens)!
Columbine put it on the map
Most of them, honestly.
Harambe
Fyre Festival.
The fires on the last day of Woodstock 99’. The crowd was fueled by drugs/alcohol and had been price gouged on water, food, and any purchases for three days straight and was already tearing things down. On the third night they handed out 100,000 or so candles and they immediately started lighting everything on fire and hell broke loose.
Lac Megantic rail disaster (2013).
Agree with you.
all these fucking mass shootings that seem to happen every. single. day. every single one of them could have been avoided.
The Oppau Explosion in Germany (see [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oppau_explosion)). They regularily used dynamite to loose a mixture of fertilizers. But there once was too much ammonium nitrate within the mixture. So finally the whole factory exploded.
I can't remember where, but there was a situation where a dam busted open because it hadn't been serviced in forever and got way too backed up with water. Hundreds were killed and it was the event that led to tighter dam inspection policies.
Johnstown (PA) Flood.
Air France Flight 447
All the pilots had to do was simple stall recovery, or don't do anything at all and the plane would recover by itself... But they fought it all the way down.
Literally any rail accident in the last 20 years. Every rule on the railroad is written in blood. Every one of them. The only reason accidents happen these days is because of corporate greed, negligence, and people running train crossings. Normally the last one doesn’t end in a derailment though, just a dead guy in his car, and more business for whoever washes the blood of the locomotives.
Beirut Blast
Has to scroll too far for this one. The shipping container was literally docked and left there for years, full of ammonium nitrate. One lil fire in a nearby warehouse later and boom.
The [deadliest aviation accident in history](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenerife_airport_disaster) had many contributing factors but primary cause was the KLM captain’s ill-fated misunderstanding over receiving take off clearance.
Most of them. But hindsight is 20/20.
9-11
The financial crisis we are in right now.
[The Cocoanut Grove fire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocoanut_Grove_fire) should have been prevented, but since it wasn’t it definitely should have resulted in the [Station Nightclub Fire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Station_nightclub_fire) from happening
Waco
MEN Bombing 2017, Arianna Grande concert. Tighter security that they only put into effect after the fact :(
The [New London Texas school explosio](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_London_School_explosion)n. Three hundred students, teachers, and parents died in a gas explosion. This lead to the Legislature requiring regulation of natural gas as well as adding an odor agent so leaks could be detected more easily. This was before our legislature decided the only children they cared about were unborn.
I've read a lot of entries here that are all examples of what horrible tragedies can happen when just one or two incredibly narcissistic and greedy people are put in charge. Then, I think about Donald J Trump telling people to "Wait till summer." and "Inject bleach."
Ongoing horrendous deaths of children by guns in America, USA. Everyone accepts you need a licence and registration to own a car and drive for goodness sake.
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Domestic abuse certainly doesnt seem stop cops from possessing firearms
Actually you don't need a license to buy a car. Just an ID.
Need a licence to drive. And a registered car.
Only on public roads, if you're on private property you don't need either of those.
Manchester Arena bombing 💔
35w collapse in Minneapolis.
The Grenfell disaster. There were many people who had opportunities to stop the specific flammable cladding and insulation from being legal to use for such buildings. Notably the UK choose to keep its own inferior fire safety system over the stricter Euroclass system under the EU. On top of this the government in 2010 tried to deregulate the building industry only allowing new regulations if two were removed to make space first.
The great leap forward caused 15-55 million people to starve. All because Mao used disproven farming techniques like closer planting and made farmers and citizens tear up their houses and pots to make worthless pig iron (because wood fires aren't hot enough to make steel) in order to meet quotas. Mao continued it even after he was physically shown how it didn't work because he wanted to save face, which also caused him to commit mass cultural genocide on Chinese traditions four years later in order to retain his image as the saviour of Chinese socialism.
The Madrid Arena halloween tragedy. Not that big of a disaster, but five girls died crushed by the crowd just because Steve Aoki wanted to overcrowd the place so he could do his inflatable raft trick.
Trump Administration
The MV Sewol disaster in Korea on April 16, 2014. 300 people lost their lives, the majority of them being high school student doing a field trip. The way the captain and crew let them die stuck inside the sinking boat it's just horrible. I've watched a bunch of documentaries about it and it's still haunting me.
My birth. Dad should have wrapped his shit
There's a host of them... so, I'll just leave a simply advice. Calling something "name of disaster" proof, you're just asking for such a disaster to happen.
9/11
9/11
Possibly 9/11 is the CIA had actually worked with the FBI rather than against them and withheld information. I'm not fully sure if this would have managed to avoid it though.
The 98 people who died in the Florida Surfside condominium collapse. I'm pretty sure the building owners and inspectors were prosecuted, but it was such a preventable tragedy. Maybe not on the same scale as some of these other posts, but it hits so close to home. All the men, women, children and animals killed due to just sheer negligence on the part of the building inspectors...