15 Crazy Engineering Mistakes

as we strive for increasingly impressive construction projects and technology the engineering behind these developments get more and more complicated fortunately there are plenty of safeguards in place to prevent things from going wrong but occasionally an error will be made that will cost an absolute fortune to resolve it's time to reach for your hard hat as we take a look at 15 engineering mistakes that cost millions number 15 the mars climate orbiter while it may not be the closest planet to earth that's an honor that goes to either venus or mercury depending on the way you measure it mars is the place that the vast majority of research in our solar system is directed to because it's the one planet that has the highest chance of one day being able to support a human colony over the past few decades a large number of probes and landers have been sent to the red planet and even if everything goes right it's an astonishing achievement to reach the target but there was one attempt however that failed not because of an unfortunate event but it was doomed to failure before it had even been loaded onto the rocket the mars climate orbiter was a probe that was launched in december of 1998 on a mission to be inserted into the martian orbit and study the planet's climate atmosphere and surface changes as well as acting as a communications relay station for landers on the surface everything seemed to be going to plan but almost a year later when the orbital insertion maneuvers began in september of 1999 everything went quiet the probe went behind mars 49 seconds earlier than expected and never re-established contact quite what happened to it whether it burned up in mars atmosphere or was thrown into outer space isn't known but in the following investigation nasa scientists found out what had gone wrong and it was all a result of an embarrassingly simple oversight two teams had been involved in building the probe one at nasa and one at lockheed martin what no one realized at the time though was that the engineers at lockheed martin had been making calculations in pounds and feet while those at nasa were using kilograms and meters without accounting for these differences the measurements of the impulse produced when the thrusters fired were wrong by a factor of 4.4 meaning the 327 million project was never going to succeed number 14 the dubai aquarium the gigantic dubai mall is the biggest shopping center in the middle east with almost five and a half million square feet of retail space it opened to great fanfare in 2008 with more than a thousand different retailers as you'd expect from such a place there was far more to do than just shop one of the most impressive features was the mall's aquarium which contains more than 300 species of marine animals including sharks and rays with more than 2.6 million gallons of water it was an impressive engineering feat especially with a tunnel that allows guests to walk through the middle of the tank soon after it opened it became clear something had gone wrong in february of 2010 the maul had to be partially evacuated as water began to leak from a crack between two of the panel joints that seemingly hadn't been connected and sealed together properly luckily it was a fairly simple fix and the mall was able to reopen within a few hours but the cleanup following the incident along with the lost revenues of the stores and the full structural analysis of the tank that had to be performed afterward all added up to several millions of dollars number 13 the millennium bridge the turn of the millennium was an event celebrated by people around the world who took the opportunity to party like it's 1999 but many governments also use the time to construct large projects that would leave a lasting mark for generations in the uk one of the more controversial plans was for a new bridge to be built over the thames which would be known as the millennium bridge the idea was that it would be a footbridge only unlike any of the others that straddle the river and despite encountering a number of delays and missing the original opening target the first pedestrians were allowed on it in june of 2000 almost immediately however it became apparent that something had gone wrong in its design with more than 90 000 people crossing it in the first day as many as 2 000 on it at a time the bridge began showing signs of synchronous lateral excitation which put simply meant that it began to sway from side to side by as much as three inches this may not sound like a lot but it was close enough to be visible and pose serious safety concerns so it was closed two days after the opening ceremony fixing the issue took almost two years of planning and construction after an additional five million pounds of work it was able to reopen again in february of 2002 without any wobbles number 12 sncf trains as the most visited country for tourism in the world and with a population of almost 70 million people france's railways are some of the busiest on the planet and the nation's economy relies on it working effectively this led it to being one of the most heavily invested public transport networks on earth and at the forefront of modern rail design while this normally means it's surprisingly easy to travel around the country any mistakes in the planning stages will lead to huge costly problems further down the line this is exactly what the rail operator the sncf found in 2014 the company had made an order for 2 000 new trains at a cost of 20.5 billion dollars and provided the manufacturing company with all the details for how long and wide the trains needed to be to operate on the network but it made a huge oversight in collecting this data it only measured the stations built within the last 30 years they soon realized that some of the older stations had a much narrower space between the track and the platforms this meant that the new trains wouldn't be able to pass through rather than changing the trains which by the time the mistake was noticed had already been built they were left with no option other than to alter more than a thousand platforms across the country at a cost of at least sixty thousand dollars per platform the full cost of rectifying the mistake is still not known but it's believed to have been in excess of a hundred million dollars number 11. lake penier if you see louisiana's lake penuer today you wouldn't think there's anything too unusual about it other than the fact that at more than 200 feet deep at places it's the deepest lake in the state the surprising thing though is that it hasn't always been that way and until 1980 it had a maximum depth of just 10 feet things took a catastrophic turn in the year when the texaco oil company performed some drilling works in the lake bed to explore for new deposits it had to be an extremely precise operation because 1300 feet beneath the lake were tunnels of a salt mine someone made a major miscalculation because the drill bit managed to puncture the top of one of the tunnels the mining rig along with 11 barges and several other boats were sucked into the whirlpool into the hole that quickly developed which caused the loss of tens of millions of dollars worth of equipment this wasn't the worst consequence though because not only was the mine completely flooded but an enormous hole opened up that actually sucked water back from the ocean into it and temporarily created the largest waterfall ever seen in louisiana the water pressure caused geysers to form from the mine shafts that were up to 400 feet high the lake had filled with salt water which killed the entire freshwater fish stock once things settled the debris of nine barges popped back up to the surface amazingly no one was killed in the incident but because of the extreme damage that was caused texaco ended up having to pay out more than 45 million dollars in damages to the owners of the mine and several businesses in the nearby area number 10 shanghai's lotus riverside complex when you see huge buildings being built around the world you may often be left wondering quite how they stayed standing so solidly in place and the answer is in their foundations huge steel struts are dug deep into the ground which the buildings are built around this is a tried and tested method to ensure stability if these foundations aren't done correctly though there could be disastrous consequences this is exactly what happened in shanghai in 2009 the lotus riverside complex was a new residential development made up of 11 13-story buildings with almost 7 000 residential units one of the buildings however which hadn't opened yet but where 489 of the 629 apartments had already been sold hadn't been built on solid enough foundations and simply tipped over amazingly the building retained its structural integrity while this happened and ended up lying on the ground on its side one worker was killed in the incident that was blamed on unusually muddy conditions and the authorities arrested nine people in connection with the design and construction of the project with mounting compensation claims from apartment owners the subsequent inability to sell units in any of the other buildings for fear that a similar problem may happen to them too this oversight cost the construction company tens of millions of dollars if not hundreds number nine the big dig tunnel the big dig tunnel officially known as central artery tunnel project is the tunnel that was opened in boston massachusetts to reroute the main part of i-93 through the center of the city with an estimated cost of 7.4 billion dollars in 2020 equivalent prices it was at the time the most expensive highway project in u.s history even though it was just for a one and a half mile long stretch of road the construction phase of the tunnel proved to be far more difficult than had been expected a multitude of issues saw the planned completion in 1998 being delayed by almost a decade to december of 2007. not only was it late but cost spiraled out of control and the final total is thought to have been closer to 21 and a half billion dollars almost three times what was originally budgeted for this was just the beginning of the problems for the tunnel however because even when it was finished it was in a terrible state thanks to poor design choices there were reportedly thousands of leaks or corrosive salt water that had caused several closures and continuous repairs then it was discovered that substandard concrete had been used which led to six arrests for defrauding the us government there were issues with the lighting installed throughout the tunnel and there were serious safety concerns in 2006 26 tons worth of concrete ceiling panels fell onto the road below which resulted in the death of a driver and the guard rails have been blamed for at least eight deaths and countless mutilations as a result of passengers being ejected from vehicles into them during accidents so far this has led to the companies responsible for building the tunnel having to pay in excess of 450 million dollars in restitution a number that's likely to become even larger before all the issues have been resolved number eight the isaac parallel submarine for most countries in the world the development of a new class of submarine is something that celebrated to show off their new militaristic capability but in 2013 spain's new addition to the fleet became somewhat of an embarrassment known as the s80 plus class or the isaac perel class it was designed and built by private spanish company for the navy with four being ordered and paid for up front at a cost of more than four and a half billion dollars hailed as utilizing the latest technologies and designs which would make it a true force to be reckoned with spanish officials believed the subs would help them become one of the most dominant naval forces in the world in 2013 however just as the first was about to be delivered a huge problem was discovered due to a design flaw there was a weight imbalance in the submarine that meant once it had submerged it was unable to surface again on its own something that most people would agree is fairly vital for a submarine to be able to do fortunately their designers were able to come up with a fix they had to extend the sub by a further 23 feet to increase the buoyancy enough for it to function properly not only did this redesign delay the project by six years it also increased costs by millions of dollars and even required the navy to redevelop the ports that had been built for the subs because they were no longer big enough for them to sail into number seven b-2 bomber built between 1989 and 2000 with a total of 21 delivered to the u.s air force the b-2 stealth bomber is often celebrated as the epitome of bomber aircraft design intended for missions deep in enemy territory they utilize technology to make them virtually invisible to most modern detection methods and can be loaded with a vast array of different payloads in total when costs of development and testing are taken into account each aircraft cost 3.52 billion dollars in the equivalent rates today and for something so expensive you'd certainly expect all of the issues to have been ironed out disaster struck in february of 2008 however when the av-12 spirit of kansas crashed after takeoff from the anderson air force base in guam luckily the two man crew were able to eject in time so there were no casualties but the total loss was valued at 1.4 billion dollars it remains the one and only time a b-2 has been involved in an accident and it was determined that it was down to a design flaw with 5176 flight hours logged the crew were confident in the safety of the aircraft but no b2 had ever taken off in the specific weather conditions the av-12 did on that day investigators found that moisture from the human air had accumulated in the aircraft's port transducer units and that had caused faulty readings to be sent into the air data system this meant that the flight control computer miscalculated the air speed and angle of attack which resulted in it pitching upwards by 30 degrees during takeoff which directly caused the crash number six hyatt regency hotel walkway in many ways the internal design aesthetics of a building are more important than the external ones and this has led to a number of different features being tried in the past few decades one style that's popular is the idea of walkways connecting floors that pass over a large atrium but in 1981 visitors to the hyatt regency hotel in kansas city saw just how deadly designs like these can be if they aren't done properly one evening with a tea party of around sixteen hundred people taking place on the ground level there were a few people on the suspended walkways when everyone stopped still they heard popping sounds and suddenly the fourth level walkway dropped a few inches and then fell from its supports on top of the second level walkway this collapsed too and the people and debris fell onto the party beneath causing 114 deaths and at least 216 severe injuries it was until 2001 the deadliest structural collapse in u.s history and most worrying of all was the fact that the subsequent investigation found that substantial changes had been made to the walkways from the initial design and there was no way that they would have ever held in place for very long it was the cost-cutting measures during the construction of the buildings that directly led to the disaster and as a result huge changes were made to the rules and regulations surrounding similar projects number five apollo 13. after two successful moon landings nasa sent another mission to our closest heavenly neighbor in april of 1970 which would become infamous for all the wrong reasons apollo 13 had to cancel the lunar landing that had been planned because of an oxygen tank failure in the service module after launch and it was a miracle that the crew was able to return to earth in one piece it was found that an explosion had been caused during a routine procedure testing the oxygen supply where a damaged piece of wire insulation provided enough of a spark but how on such a meticulous mission like the apollo program could the wire have been damaged in the first place the answer investigators found was that this happened during pre-flight testing along with the fact that it had been made from the wrong material the wire was only rated to handle 28 volts of dc power but during the ground testing engineers used 65 volts which soon caused it to deteriorate and create an accident waiting to happen number four the ford pinto produced and sold in the us between 1971 and 1980 the ford pinto was the company's smallest vehicle since 1907 and because of its competitive price became a best seller for the company with more than 3 million units being sold eclipsing its two closest rivals combined the pinto hasn't exactly gone down in history as the success that those numbers suggest it should have been and that's because designers made a catastrophic mistake in the planning stages that led to more than one and a half million of them being recalled to be fixed and hundreds of millions of dollars worth of costs and settlements which included at the time the largest award ever in u.s product liability and personal injury cases the mistake they had made was the placement of the fuel tank between the rear axle and the rear bumper if it was struck in a certain way something that's quite likely when a vehicle is rear-ended it was prone to leaking and catching on fire something that's happened several times and was responsible for a number of deaths and injuries number three deep water horizon deepwater horizon was a semi-submersible ultra-deep water offshore drilling rig and one of the most advanced at the time when it was built in 2001 and used to access oil fields far beyond the reach of traditional rigs it set the record in september of 2009 for drilling the deepest oil well in history when it was working in the tiber oil field to the southeast of houston and was moved along the coast for its next drilling project at the macondo prospect in april of 2010. this procedure didn't go at all to plan however and to blow out during the drilling process led to an explosion on the rig that killed 11 people in a fireball that could be seen 40 miles away the greater damage was caused underwater though because after the deepwater horizon sank two days later the well it had drilled left oil pouring into the water in what became the largest marine oil spill ever the disaster led to payouts of at least 10 billion dollars to local communities people directly affected by the spill and what made things worse was that it could have been all prevented procedures hadn't been put in place to deal with emergencies when drilling at such depths which meant that when the accident happened what could have been dealt with in shallower water was simply impossible because there wasn't any equipment available that could be used at this drill site number two xiangsu bridge the seongsu bridge is an important route that connects the sangdong and the gangnam districts of seoul and south korea but the one that was used by thousands of people each day isn't the original one that was opened in 1979 just shy of four thousand feet long a canter-lever design was chosen because of how safe they are seen as being and for how long they are projected to last when it opened it led to a huge amount of further development throughout the city because it significantly reduced travel times and for 15 years everything was going well then one morning in october of 1994 a supporting trust failed because of a faulty weld an entire section of the bridge fell into the water killing 32 people and injuring 17. at first the plan was to simply fix this section but there were such concerns about the quality of the rest of the bridge that it was completely dismantled and rebuilt again at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars number one chernobyl remaining the most devastating nuclear disaster ever and arguably the worst preventable accident in history the incident at the chernobyl power plant in ukraine in april of 1986 led to estimated costs of around 68 billion dollars and untold damages of the surrounding communities and environment often cited as an argument against the use of nuclear power the truth is the disaster was a result of poor design and mismanagement at the site it began in the morning during a safety test that simulated a power outage but because of a delay to the test an unprepared team was on duty at the time and a series of unexpected faults led to several explosions and a fire in the reactor core that released huge quantities of radioactive particles had the reactor been designed better or the test been conducted in the intended way then it's unlikely any of this would have ever happened all the soviet authorities weren't exactly willing to share information in the aftermath of the incident if one good thing has now come from it is that scientists have established the causes and have been able to ensure that similar issues will never again be able to cause a reactor meltdown you

Channel: Top Fives

Views: 235,501

Rating: 4.8602896 out of 5

Keywords: Crazy Engineering Mistake

Id: vmjFkyaUSq0

Length: 20min 28sec (1228 seconds)

Published: Sat May 01 2021