Case Studies and Key Individuals
Petroski notes that most engineering failures are much more involved than simple technical mis-calculations and involve the failure of the design process or management culture. However, not all engineering failures involve ethical issues. The infamous collapse of the first Tacoma Narrows Bridge, and the losses of the Mars Polar Lander and Mars Climate Orbiter were technical and design process failures.
These episodes of engineering failure include ethical as well as technical issues.
- Space Shuttle Columbia disaster (2003)
- Space Shuttle Challenger disaster (1986)
- Therac-25 accidents (1985 to 1987)
- Chernobyl disaster (1986)
- Bhopal disaster (1984)
- Kansas City Hyatt Regency walkway collapse (1981)
- Love Canal (1980), Lois Gibbs
- Three Mile Island accident (1979)
- Citigroup Center (1978),
- Ford Pinto safety problems (1970s)
- Minamata disease (1908–1973)
- Chevrolet Corvair safety problems (1960s), Ralph Nader, and Unsafe at Any Speed
- Boston molasses disaster (1919)
- Quebec Bridge collapse (1907), Theodore Cooper
- Johnstown Flood (1889), South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club
- Tay Bridge Disaster (1879), Thomas Bouch, William Henry Barlow, and William Yolland
- Ashtabula River Railroad Disaster (1876), Amasa Stone
Read more about this topic: Engineering Ethics
Famous quotes containing the words case, studies, key and/or individuals:
“Pardon me, you are not engaged to any one. When you do become engaged to some one, I, or your father, should his health permit him, will inform you of the fact. An engagement should come on a young girl as a surprise, pleasant or unpleasant, as the case may be. It is hardly a matter that she could be allowed to arrange for herself.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“What happiness did poor Mother’s studies bring her? It is the melancholy tendency of such studies to separate people from their friends and neighbors and fellow creatures in whom alone lies one’s happiness.”
—Mary Potter Playne (c. 1850–?)
“Power, in Case’s world, meant corporate power. The zaibatsus, the multinationals ..., had ... attained a kind of immortality. You couldn’t kill a zaibatsu by assassinating a dozen key executives; there were others waiting to step up the ladder; assume the vacated position, access the vast banks of corporate memory.”
—William Gibson (b. 1948)
“How is freedom measured, in individuals as in nations? By the resistance which has to be overcome, by the effort it costs to stay aloft. One would have to seek the highest type of free man where the greatest resistance is constantly being overcome: five steps from tyranny, near the threshold of the danger of servitude.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)