Military
- The software error of a MIM-104 Patriot, caused its system clock to drift by one third of a second – resulting in failure to locate and intercept an incoming missile. The Iraqi missile impacted in a military compound in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia (February 25, 1991), killing 28 Americans.
- A Chinook crash on Mull of Kintyre in June 1994. A Royal Air Force Chinook helicopter crashed into the Mull of Kintyre, killing 29. This was initially dismissed as pilot error, but an investigation by Computer Weekly uncovered sufficient evidence to convince a House of Lords inquiry that it may have been caused by a software bug in the aircraft's engine control computer.
- Smart ship USS Yorktown was left dead in the water in 1997 for nearly 3 hours after a divide by zero error.
- In April 1992 the first F-22 Raptor crashed while landing at Edwards Air Force Base, California. The cause of the crash was found to be a flight control software error that failed to prevent a pilot-induced oscillation.
- While attempting its first overseas deployment to the Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan, on 11 February 2007, a group of six F-22 Raptors flying from Hickam AFB, Hawaii, experienced multiple computer crashes coincident with their crossing of the 180th meridian of longitude (the International Date Line). The computer failures included at least navigation (completely lost) and communication. The fighters were able to return to Hawaii by following their tankers, something that might have been problematic had the weather not been good. The error was fixed within 48 hours, allowing a delayed deployment.
Read more about this topic: List Of Software Bugs
Famous quotes containing the word military:
“There was somewhat military in his nature, not to be subdued, always manly and able, but rarely tender, as if he did not feel himself except in opposition. He wanted a fallacy to expose, a blunder to pillory, I may say required a little sense of victory, a roll of the drum, to call his powers into full exercise.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The military mind is indeed a menace. Old-fashioned futurity that sees only men fighting and dying in smoke and fire; hears nothing more civilized than a cannonade; scents nothing but the stink of battle-wounds and blood.”
—Sean O’Casey (1884–1964)
“The transformation of the impossible into reality is always the mark of a demonic will. The only way to recognize a military genius is by the fact that, during the war, he will mock the rules of warfare and will employ creative improvisation instead of tested methods and he will do so at the right moment.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)