Human Error Causes Most Engineering DisastersHuman Error Causes Most Engineering Disasters

A study by the Swiss government determined the type of human errors that lead to engineering disasters and ranked those errors by percentage.

Rob Spiegel

September 23, 2016

2 Min Read
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When you dig into the details of most engineering disasters, human error shows up again and again. Recently, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich analyzed 800 cases of structural failure in which 504 people were killed, 592 people injured, and millions of dollars of damage occurred. When engineers were at fault, the researchers classified the causes of the failure.

The following slides indicate the type of errors possible. The first four slides explain the conditions that caused disasters. The remaining eight slides show the results of the Swiss study, breaking down the human error by type.

Click on the image below to begin the slideshow

The I-35W Mississippi River bridge was an eight-lane, steel truss arch bridge that carried Interstate 35W across the Saint Anthony Falls of the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, Minn. During the evening rush hour on August 1, 2007, it collapsed, killing 13 people and injuring 145. The National Transportation Safety Board cited a design flaw as the likely cause of the collapse, noting that a too-thin gusset plate ripped along a line of rivets, and asserted that additional weight on the bridge at the time of the collapse contributed to the catastrophic failure. (Source: umn.edu)

(The disaster image in each slide is for illustrative purposes only and does not necessarily correspond with the type of fault named on the slide.)

READ MORE ABOUT ENGINEERING DISASTERS:

Rob Spiegel has covered automation and control for 15 years, 12 of them for Design News. Other topics he has covered include supply chain technology, alternative energy, and cyber security. For 10 years he was owner and publisher of the food magazine Chile Pepper.

About the Author

Rob Spiegel

Rob Spiegel serves as a senior editor for Design News. He started with Design News in 2002 as a freelancer covering sustainability issues, including the transistion in electronic components to RoHS compliance. Rob was hired by Design News as senior editor in 2011 to cover automation, manufacturing, 3D printing, robotics, AI, and more.

Prior to his work with Design News, Rob worked as a senior editor for Electronic News and Ecommerce Business. He served as contributing editolr to Automation World for eight years, and he has contributed to Supply Chain Management Review, Logistics Management, Ecommerce Times, and many other trade publications. He is the author of six books on small business and internet commerce, inclluding Net Strategy: Charting the Digital Course for Your Company's Growth.

He has been published in magazines that range from Rolling Stone to True Confessions.

Rob has won a number of awards for his technolloghy coverage, including a Maggy Award for a Design News article on the Jeep Cherokee hacking, and a Launch Team award for Ecommerce Business. Rob has also won awards for his leadership postions in the American Marketing Association and SouthWest Writers.

Before covering technology, Rob spent 10 years as publisher and owner of Chile Pepper Magazine, a national consumer food publication. He has published hundreds of poems and scores of short stories in national publications.

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