Some completely missed the mark
Cutting-edge, new technology is employed in much of what we use today. But high-tech doesn't always do what it says on the label. In fact, some of the world's most notorious man-made disasters can be attributed fully or in part to malfunctioning technology. Coupled with inferior design and substandard engineering, poor technology is an accident waiting to happen. So, where has a lack of tech been found wanting?
Click through and learn of fatal technological disasters that went down in history.
The catastrophic implosion on June 18, 2023, that doomed the Titan submersible claimed five lives. The violent event was triggered by a severe pressure imbalance. Most analysts agree it was an "accident waiting to happen," based on previous concerns regarding the vessel's structural integrity.
Record low temperatures on the day of the launch that had reduced the ability of rubber O-rings to seal joints in its fuselage resulted in the loss of the space shuttle Challenger on January 28, 1986. Seven astronauts died in the disaster.
The crash in Indonesia on October 29, 2018, of a Boeing 737 Max designated Lion Air Flight 610 failed to alert the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to a fatal flaw in the Boeing's flight control system.
It was only after a second Boeing 737 MAX went down, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 on March 10, 2019, that the FAA grounded the entire 737 MAX fleet. A problem was eventually identified with the Boeing's maneuvering characteristics augmentation system (MCAS), which activated an anti-stall measure when the procedure wasn't necessary or called for. MCAS had inadvertently put both planes into a fatal dive.
A combined technological and engineering fault was blamed for the derailment of an ICE 1 train in Germany on June 3, 1998, near the town of Eschede. A defective wheel on the first carriage disintegrated, causing a catastrophic concertina collision of coaches that killed 101 people.
Several motorists relying on advanced driver assistance systems have been badly let down by this new technology. In 2019, in what is widely believed to be the world's first death by a self-driving car, an Uber robot car failed to detect a pedestrian crossing the road ahead. It ploughed into her before the vehicle's occupant could take control of the vehicle. More recently, a Tesla Model 3 being operated on autopilot was involved in a collision in which the occupant of the other car died.
Similarly, dozens of deaths have been linked to keyless ignition systems. Since 2006, over 30 people have been killed and 45 injured by carbon monoxide poisoning from keyless ignition vehicles. A New York Times report tells the story of a couple who died of carbon-monoxide poisoning after their 2017 Toyota Avalon, equipped with a push-button keyless ignition, was mistakenly left running inside their garage. The fumes seeped into the adjacent property and poisoned them both.
Advanced airframe technology failed to protect Air France Flight 4590, a Concorde whose fuel tanks were ruptured by tire fragments as it took off from Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris bound for New York on July 25, 2000. All 109 people on board were killed, plus four on the ground.
In February 1991 during the Gulf War, an American Patriot missile battery in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, failed to track and intercept an incoming Iraqi Scud missile. The Scud subsequently found its target, killing 28 American soldiers and injuring dozens more. The cause of the failure was identified as a computer software error, which slowed up the internal tracking system by just 0.34 seconds, but allowed enough time for the Iraqi missile to sneak through US defenses undetected.
Chernobyl stands as one of the world's worst avoidable disasters. A flawed reactor design, outdated technology, and inadequately trained personnel all contributed towards the accident on April 26, 1986, which killed two people in the initial explosion but has claimed hundreds of other lives since, most due to radiation exposure.
On August 12, 1985, Japan Air Lines Flight 123 fell out of the sky and crashed in the area of Mount Takamagahara, near Tokyo. Rapid decompression, which unseated the vertical stabilizer and severed all four hydraulic lines, doomed the plane. The disaster claimed 520 lives, making it the deadliest single-aircraft accident in aviation history. Miraculously, however, four passengers survived the ordeal.
A leak of highly toxic gas that claimed the lives of at least 2,500 people on the night of December 2–3, 1984, remains the world's worst industrial disaster. The gas, methyl isocyanate, escaped from a pressure release valve and drifted over sleeping residents in Bophal, in Madhya Pradesh state.
Apollo 1 was planned to be the first crewed mission of the Apollo program. But on January 27, 1967, a fire in the command module during a launch rehearsal killed astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee. An electrical malfunction sparked the blaze, which quickly took hold in the high-pressure pure oxygen cabin atmosphere.
Flawed engineering, inadequate structural design, and fast-tracked construction led to the collapse of two overhead walkways inside the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Kansas City, Missouri, on June 17, 1981. The accident left 114 dead and over 200 injured.
Seventeen years after the Challenger disaster, NASA lost the Space Shuttle Columbia. The vessel disintegrated as it reentered the atmosphere on February 1, 2003, killing all seven astronauts on board. Its fate was sealed when it lifted off. A piece of insulating foam that broke loose from the shuttle's external propellant tank struck the leading edge of the left wing, damaging the all-important protective tiles. These subsequently buckled and gave way during reentry to expose Columbia to searing heat, which caused a catastrophic explosion.
A combination of lax procedures, poor technical knowledge, and lack of maintenance contributed towards the Port Chicago disaster. On July 7, 1944, a deadly munitions explosion blew apart two ships and killed 320 African-American servicemen at the Port Chicago armaments facility in California.
One of the deadliest single-building fires in American history occurred in Chicago on December 30, 1903, when the city's Iroquois Theater went up in flames. The building had been billed as "absolutely fireproof," but an inquiry later ascertained that no sprinklers, alarms, telephones, or water connections had been fitted, precautions that may have helped save some of the 602 theatergoers who perished in the blaze.
On December 15, 1967, the Silver Bridge spanning the Ohio River at Point Pleasant in West Virginia collapsed. Forty-six people died as a result of a fracture in the bridge's eyebar that buckled under the weight of rush-hour traffic.
An explosion onboard the SS Grandcamp detonated her cargo of ammonium nitrate, which started a chain reaction of fires and explosions that totally destroyed the port of Texas City in Galveston Bay. The accident on April 16, 1947, which claimed the lives of over 580 people, was blamed on a buildup of steam pressure that eventually blew off hatches that had been sealed in an effort to contain a fire in the hold.
The collision on July 19, 1979, involving the oil tankers SS Atlantic Empress and Aegean Captain resulted in the loss of 26 crewmembers and the dreadful spillage of 287,000 metric tonnes of crude oil into the Caribbean Sea. Both vessels were woefully undermanned, underpowered, and ill-equipped to deal with a calamity of this scale. The Empress eventually sank, while the Captain was able to limp into port at Curaçao.
A pedestrian suspension bridge built using 19th-century technology collapsed on October 30, 2022, sending dozens tumbling into the Machchhu River in the city of Morbi in Gujarat. Ultimately, 135 people died as a result of this accident.
Initially blamed on sabotage, the explosion at the Paraguaná Refinery Complex in Amuay near Punto Fijo, Venezuela, on August 25, 2012, was later found to be the result of a gas leak, made possible by seepage through studs insufficiently screwed down on a pump. The blast killed 48 people, including a 10-year-old boy.
Various theories have been put forward as to the reason why the LZ 129 Hindenburg exploded at Lakehurst, New Jersey, as it was attempting to dock on May 6, 1937. The likely explanation is that leaking hydrogen mixed with oxygen from outside air ignited due to static electricity. But sabotage has never been entirely ruled out. The accident caused 35 fatalities.
A truly appalling accident took place in Lagos, Nigeria, when an elevated pipeline carrying petroleum products was punctured by thieves. Soon afterwards, dozens of people converged on the damaged structure to salvage leaking fuel. The cause of the subsequent explosion, which took place in the city's Abule Egba neighborhood on December 26, 2006, is unknown, but it effectively incinerated around 500 people.
Although a police investigation concluded that the fire that engulfed the Summerland leisure center in Douglas on the Isle of Man was likely started by a discarded match, the cladding used to insulate the building was highly inflammable, made using asbestos and coated with bitumen—materials that would never be allowed today. The inferno, which took hold on the evening of August 2, 1973, claimed 50 lives.
The catastrophic failure of the St. Francis Dam in 1928 ended with the loss of 431 lives and the flooding by a colossal amount of water of the San Francisquito Canyon. Findings released later pinpointed the unsuitability of the bedrock for supporting a dam and a reservoir—an oversight by the engineering and technological teams charged with conducting surveys and drawing up blueprints.
The structural failure of a railway bridge over the Ashtabula River in Ohio on December 29, 1876, claimed the lives of 92 passengers in the ensuing fire. A coroner's jury blamed the Ashtabula River rail disaster on poor design, substandard construction, bad governance, and the failure to install self-extinguishing heating stoves in coaches, which might have lessened the intensity of the flames.
The Vasa, a 17th-century Swedish warship, sank just a few minutes into her maiden voyage, on August 10, 1628, in Stockholm harbor. The boat had been built too long and too tall for its beam, making it dangerously unstable in open water. The vessel quickly listed and sank, taking 50 crew with her. The ship was salvaged with a largely intact hull in 1961, and is today the centerpiece exhibit at Stockholm's Vasa Museum.
Sources: (The New Yorker) (DW) (Reuters) (The New York Times) (Smithsonian)
Tragic technological disasters in history
Notorious failures of technology
MOVIES Tech
Cutting-edge, new technology is employed in much of what we use today. But high-tech doesn't always do what it says on the label. In fact, some of the world's most notorious man-made disasters can be attributed fully or in part to malfunctioning technology. Coupled with inferior design and substandard engineering, poor technology is an accident waiting to happen. So, where has a lack of tech been found wanting?
Click through and learn of fatal technological disasters that went down in history.