If we want to understand the future, it may be necessary to look back on history. Especially, we can learn from mistakes and avoid repeating them again. We (humans) have made several technical mistakes in history, far too many I think. Many have resulted in severe disasters. There are many types of mistakes of course but I am thinking in particular of an excessive faith in technology that has led to disasters. I hope it is clear to everybody that I am not opposing new technology at all, on the contrary I welcome it but we must be aware of the two sides, the good and the bad, of powerful technology.
This list is not about the most serious accidents, in terms of numbers of deaths. It is a list of complete technology disasters and they all represent some of the most advanced technology of its time.
1. Titanic
1912 the construction of RMS Titanic was completed. On the night of 14 April 1912, during her maiden voyage, Titanic hit an iceberg and sank less than 3 hours later. Titanic used the most advanced technology available at the time. How could this ship, this technical miracle, go to the bottom of the Atlantic so easily? It was a shock for the entire world. With less faith on new technology they would probably prepare more lifeboats and life jackets than they did.
R.M.S Titanic
2. The Hindenburg disaster
The German airship Hindenburg was going to land and dock outside New Jersey when it suddenly caught fire. 35 people from the 97 crew and passengers died and also one person on the ground. The actual cause of the fire is still unknown but it is more or less clear that it was due to technical problems and not a terrorist act. Looking at it with today’s eyes, flying with a balloon full of hydrogen seems to very risky but the long history of flying these airships without a single injury or fatality gave rise to a general belief it was safe to use hydrogen. After this accident the airship story suddenly came to an end. The following video is rather tasteless IMO…
Hindenburg Explodes – Special Release 1937/05/10
3. The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster
This disaster occurred on January 28, 1986. After 73 seconds the Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart. All seven crew member died.
An O-ring failure le to a sequence that eventually led to a leakage of hot gas from rocket motor to reach the outside and the external fuel tank. The tank did not explode but a massive fireball was produced and huge aerodynamic forces made the shuttle to break apart. A small mistake that had terrible consequences. In this video, the reporter obviously didn’t understand what was happening.
Challenger Disaster Live on CNN
4. The Kyshtym disaster
On 29 September 1957, in Mayak, a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant close to the city Kyshtym in the Soviet Union exploded caused by a failure in the cooling system. The explosion released considerable amounts of radioactivity that contaminated a 800 square kilometers area with radioactivity. The Soviet government estimated that the direct exposure to radiation caused at least 200 cases of death from cancer. Given how the Soviet withheld information at the time, the number of deaths was probably much higher.
Mayak nuclear experiment
5. Chernobyl disaster
On 26 April 1986 a reactor at the Chernobyl plant in Soviet exploded. Further explosions and the resulting fire made the radioactivity to spread into the atmosphere. The reactor had many safety measures built-in, but the Chernobyl scientists had too much faith in the reactor and disabled many security systems, believing that a major incident would not occur. The nuclear meltdown produced a radioactive cloud that floated over many of the communist states at that time. It also reached Turkey, eastern and northern parts of Europe. Light doses could even be meassured in eastern North America. Probably about 4000 people died from cancer due to this accident.
Chernobyl Disaster
Others
There is another type of disasters that are not spectacular but sever in other ways. Such as as the CO2 problems due to our oil consumption. It is not clear to me if starting to use the combustion engine was a mistake or not. We gained much during decades and now we have a huge challenge with pollutions to solve. Mistake or not, was it possible to foresee this development? No I don’t think so.
Many disasters are results from political decisions about a technology that was not fully understood by the decision makers, such as the Apollo 1 case (I think). One old example is the Vasa ship, a warship that was built for King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden 1628. The ship foundered and sank after sailing less than 2 km into her maiden voyage on 10 August 1628. The day was calm with a light breeze but the ship couldn’t stand the weather just outside the port. The constructors knew that the ship was very unstable and didn’t think the ship was ready to sail but they didn’t dare to oppose the Kings order to sail.
The war history is full of technology mistakes. Hiroshima and Nagasaki Nuclear bombs ended the second war but to what price? Did they really know in advance the terrible consequences it would have? I hope not. The 2 bombs killed 140,000 people in Hiroshima and 80,000 in Nagasaki by the end of 1945. During many years to come more have died from leukemia and different types of cancer.
What are the worst technology based disasters? Let me know!
Links to related previous posts:
I think that the gas disaster in Bhopal, India, should be on the list. Maybe 8000 people died from gas leaking out from the factory.
Keep it up!
That was a terrible disaster. From Wikipedia we can learn that is was maybe the worst industrial disaster during all times. However, as far as I understand, it was more a result from human greed and lack of knowledge than a technology mistake. They didn’t care much about safety issues.