Collapse of the Willow Island Cooling Tower

In the 1970s, power companies began building many new coal-fired electrical power plants in the Ohio Valley to feed the growing industry in that region. These power plants were close to coal mines, so the electricity they generated was less expensive than nuclear or hydroelectric ...

By |2023-02-22T09:15:19-06:00May 27th, 2021|Friday Famous Failures|11 Comments

Airplane Propeller-Induced Flutter

One night in September 1959, a Lockheed Electra L-188A turboprop aircraft with 28 passengers and 6 crew apparently disintegrated mid-flight over Buffalo, Texas. The Electra was new at the time, the first large turboprop airliner built by a United States aircraft company ...

By |2023-02-22T09:15:23-06:00April 29th, 2021|Friday Famous Failures|8 Comments

The DuPont Buffalo Plant Explosion

It should have been a day of routine maintenance on November 9, 2010 at the DuPont plant in North Tonawanda, New York. Tank 1, which normally contained 10,000-gallons of polyvinyl fluoride (PVF), a slurry used in manufactured countertops, had been cleaned and inspected in preparation for repairs ...

By |2023-02-22T09:15:26-06:00March 25th, 2021|Friday Famous Failures|7 Comments

The Columbia Space Shuttle Disaster

In 1981, the shuttle Columbia became the first to successfully reach space. From 1981 to 2003, Columbia carried dozens of astronauts on missions, spending a total of 300 days, 17 hours, 40 minutes, and 22 seconds in space. Columbia’s last flight was STS-107, a 16-day research mission ...

By |2023-03-06T08:55:33-06:00February 25th, 2021|Friday Famous Failures|5 Comments

Sinking of the Swedish Warship, The Vasa

The Vasa was a Swedish warship built between 1626 and 1628. The ship sank after only sailing roughly 1,400 yards into its maiden voyage on August 10, 1628. Now, resurrected from the sea, the Vasa represents a widely-recognized symbol of the Swedish “great power period.”

By |2023-03-06T10:48:29-06:00November 19th, 2020|Friday Famous Failures|7 Comments