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:
“We all know the Navy is never wrong, but in this case it was a little weak on being right.”
—Wendell Mayes, U.S. screenwriter. Otto Preminger. CINCPAC II (Henry Fonda)
“These studies which stimulate the young, divert the old, are an ornament in prosperity and a refuge and comfort in adversity; they delight us at home, are no impediment in public life, keep us company at night, in our travels, and whenever we retire to the country.”
—Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 B.C.)
“At the last, tenderly,
From the walls of the powerful fortress’d house,
From the clasp of the knitted locks, from the keep of the well-closed doors,
Let me be wafted.
Let me glide noiselessly forth;
With the key of softness unlock the locks—with a whisper,
Set ope the doors O soul.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
“... as women become free, economic, social factors, so becomes possible the full social combination of individuals in collective industry. With such freedom, such independence, such wider union, becomes possible also a union between man and woman such as the world has long dreamed of in vain.”
—Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935)