The Theory of Nothing

What exactly is an accident?

What exactly is an accident?

No, I'm not being facetious. This is an important concept. In the modern world the idea of an accident has been distorted. The reason I say this is evident in the definition: An unforeseen and unplanned event or circumstance, or an unfortunate event resulting especially from carelessness or ignorance. This is from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

In other words, most accidents are screw-ups. They're caused by human error or negligence not from natural failure. Accidents can be prevented. Let me count the ways . . .

The Space Shuttle Columbia STS-107 disaster on Feb 1, 2003 is an excellent example of this. This screw-up was caused by a chunk of foam insulation (not covered with white paint) falling off the main fuel tank (which is the light weight unit that was not painted white because the paint weighed 600 lbs) and damaging a thermal protective tile section on the wing, which failed during reentry. This debacle resulted from poor risk management protocols and cost-cutting directives made despite the fact that this sort of damage was not only possible but that it risked the mission.

Of course, the most flagrant screw-up occurred in the Challenger Space Shuttle STS-51 Disaster of 1986. An ignored flaw in the O-rings of the booster rockets caused this. The engineers had warned that cold launch temperatures could cause these O-rings to fail, but their warnings were ignored. The result was the deaths of seven astronauts, including a civilian schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe.

There have been numerous airplane accidents ever since the airplane was invented. Although many of these were due to mechanical failure or even terrorist attacks, some were caused by human error. One such accident is the Tenerife Disaster on March 27, 1977. This accident killed 583 people and is the most to die in a single air disaster. It happened on a foggy runway where a KLM Boeing 747 decided to take off without clearance and collided with a Pan AM 747 that was taxing.

A notable bridge disaster was the I-35W Mississippi River bridge in Minneapolis collapse that killed 13 people. The reason it failed is a design flaw. A gusset plate that was too thin ripped out a bunch of rivets. The result was that the bridge was incapable of handing the load and fell down into the river.

Many disasters occur because of bad engineering. Probably the worst is the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant meltdown in April 26, 1986. This Ukraine power plant had no containment building. A failure in the cooling system resulted in a runaway meltdown that spread radiation over a wide area, killing many people and forcing over three hundred thousand people to be relocated.

The Hindenburg airship disaster on May6, 1937 has been blamed on a spark that caused the hydrogen used to make it float to explode. Some have attributed the mishap to sabotage, others to lightening. A plausible cause is the coating on the fabric. It consisted of iron oxide and aluminum-impregnated cellulose acetate butyrate. This is a potential source not so much for the ignition but for rapid burning. No matter which theory you ascribe to, the main cause is engineering failure. It's the reason we don't see hydrogen blimps anymore. All blimps use non-flammable helium. Actually, air ships like the Hindenburg were abandoned. Even our helium sir ships crashed for one reason or another.

The bottom line to all of this is that most accidents are man made, not flukes of nature.

Thanks for reading.