- [Narrator] Nobody's
perfect and human error is almost inevitable, but
some monumental screw-ups can end up costing shed loads of cash. Here are some of the most
expensive mistakes in history which should make you feel slightly better about your own slip-ups. (playful music) Number 10: Seongsu Bridge Collapse. The Seongsu bridge over the Han River links two South Korean districts and is one of Seoul's most
popular commuter routes, but the 3805-foot structure
was struck by disaster on the morning of October 21st, 1994. The bridge struggled under
the weight of the hundreds of people on their way to work
in the early morning rush, and at around 7:40 AM a
157-foot central chunk collapsed 65-feet into the
river below along with cars, minibuses and a fully loaded bus. 32 people lost their lives
while 17 more were injured, and an investigation was
launched into the freak accident. The bridge had already received complaints about unstable foundations
which caused an unsteady swinging sensation, and the
root cause was identified as a construction failure. Reports noted that the
steel trestle joints supporting the central
suspension had been welded with an incorrect
thickness of 8 millimeters rather than 10 millimeters,
causing crucial connecting pins to break under the immense pressure. Although the bridge was
designed to withstand a maximum 36.3-ton weight
per car, vehicles weighing 47.3-tons were also using
the bridge to commute. These combined factors
cost the State Council $185,000 in compensation to the victims, while a complete rebuild
set them back the equivalent of an extra $2 million, making
this one costly human error. Number 9: Deadly Skyscrapers. In Spring 2014 London welcomed an ambitious new skyscraper
to its financial district. The 525-foot-tall reflective building became known as the
Walkie-talkie due to its distinct curved design, but this shiny new tower was hiding a sinister secret. As summer came around, citizens of London began complaining that
the buildings south-facing concave surface was causing
powerful rays of sunlight at certain points in the
day which could raise the temperature to an
unheard-of 70 degrees celsius. The highly concentrated beam was capable of melting tiles, causing
a small fire on the doormat of a barbershop and melting a Jaguar XJ belonging to a local businessman. While one journalist even
attempted to fry an egg in the extreme heat. The newly-nicknamed
Walkie-scorchie had to be stopped, so a permanent sunshade
known as a brise soleil was attached to the building
between the 3rd and 34th floors over the course of 6 months,
costing over $12 million, a hard pill to swallow
considering the building already cost over $250 million to build. Ironically, the architect Rafael Viñoly also designed the Vidara
Hotel in Las Vegas which suffered a similar
problem as it singed sunbathers, earning it the nickname the Death ray. Viñoly confessed that he
knew this would happen, but that he didn't have
the tools to analyze just how bad it would be. Someone needs to tell
this guy to stop designing super weapons instead of buildings. Number 8: Lotus Riverside Disaster. The Lotus riverside complex in Shanghai was an ambitious project which
ended in complete disaster because of one simple mistake. The residential complex
was comprised of 11 new high-rise apartment
blocks, but at around 5 AM on 27th June 2009 one of
the 13-story buildings suddenly collapsed, miraculously
missing the surrounding blocks and avoiding a
devastating domino effect. The incident killed one
construction worker, but the fallout could've
been much worse if the almost complete building had been
occupied by its buyers. Investigations found
that the freak accident was caused by non-compliance
with construction standards and some seriously shoddy foundations. Earth beneath the building was excavated to make a 15-foot underground
carpark and the soil had been piled up 32-feet
on a nearby riverbank, which then burst under the pressure sending water gushing beneath. These muddy foundations
caused the building to topple over in a southerly direction, but simply moving the earth elsewhere could've prevented the whole ordeal. This massive oversight caused
a number of project investors to withdraw and request their money back, and the company suffered
total economic losses of up to $30 million,
including construction costs and compensation to
the would-be homeowners of the $2,100-per-square-meter apartments. Number 7: Lake Peigneur Disaster. In 1980, a drilling exhibition
commissioned by Texaco triggered a cataclysmic series of events which turned an 11-foot-deep
freshwater body of water in Louisiana known as Lake Peigneur into a 1,300-foot-deep saltwater lake. On November 20th, a $5 million
oil rig owned by drilling contractor Wilson Brothers
accidentally damaged the dome of the underground
Diamond Crystal Salt Mine following a miscalculation by Texaco regarding their exact location. Around 13 billion liters
of water were drained from the lake, washing
salt, soil and water into an immersible and ever-widening hole which created a powerful vortex sucking in the drilling platform,
11 barges, a tugboat, 65 acres of surrounding
terrain and even a small island in the center of the lake. The ensuing chaos destroyed
most evidence of the accident as air escaping from the
mine caused 400-foot geysers and the Delcambre canal reversed direction to flow into the whirlpool. Miraculously no one was killed, but the real casualty was
Texaco's pride and their wallet, as the company paid $32 million
to Diamond Crystal salt mine and $12.8 million to a
nearby plant nursery, making Lake Peigneur
perhaps the most expensive manmade lake in history, setting
Texaco and Wilson Brothers back over the equivalent
of $140 million today. Number 6: The Baltic Ace. Catastrophic mistakes can happen anywhere, as proven by the Baltic Ace carrier ship which sank in just 15
minutes in the North Sea on December 5th, 2012. The 23,500-ton ship was lost 65 kilometers off the Dutch coast after colliding with Cyprian container ship the Corvus J, killing 11 of its 24 crew members and sinking over 1,400 new Mitsubishi cars which were being transported
from Japan and Tokyo to Russia. The wreck ended up almost 100-feet-deep in one of the world's
busiest shipping lanes, hindering a safe passage for
marine traffic and risking the release of dangerous
substances into the environment. In March 2014, the company Rijkswaterstaat commissioned partners
Boskalis and Mammoet Salvage to remove the wreckage,
which began by extracting its 540,000 remaining liters of oil. More than 18 ships and
150 people then took part in a huge operation to
remove the sunken vessel which could only be achieved by lifting the irreparably
damaged wreck in chunks. Starting in April 2015, the
ship was cut into 8 sections with wire and bought to
the surface in pieces. Look at just how huge it was. Here's the bow, with all
the cars inside ruined. Dutch police were unable to
investigate the accident itself as it occurred outside of
their territorial waters, but the mistake has since been speculated as a result of pure human error, as neither ship followed
collision regulations. The mammoth salvage operation
alone cost 67 million euros, the equivalent of around
$75 million today. Add that to the cost of the Baltic Ace, and the cost to repair the Corvus J, as well as the cargo they were carrying, and the driving error cost
around $150 million in total. Number 5: Mars Climate Orbiter. In September 1999, NASA's
638-kilogram robotic space probe the Mars Climate Orbiter
burned up and broke into pieces as it neared its destination after 10 long months of traveling. The orbiter was designed
to examine the climate of the Martian planet, but
the reason for its failure to even touch ground lay
entirely with the people who sent it into space to begin with. The navigation team at Jet Propulsion Lab had used metric units, measuring
in millimeters and meters, to indicate the planned
altitude of the spacecraft, while Lockheed Martin
Astronautics in Denver Colorado used imperial measurements
in inches and feet and crucially failed to recognize that the measurements required conversion. As a result, the trajectory
of the climate orbiter is estimated to have been
dangerously within 57 kilometers of the planet's surface,
where it skipped violently upon entry and was immediately destroyed. This huge discrepancy was
responsible for the failure of the entire mission, and the mission, worth just over $328 million
in 1999 was lost forever. Adjusted for inflation,
that's the equivalent of over half a billion dollars. I guess it pays to stick
to one measurement system. Number 4: The S-81 Isaac Peral. Mistakes are easily made
and it's often too late to rectify the situation by
the time someone notices, but that wasn't exactly the
case with Spain's supposedly state-of-the-art submarine
the S-81 Isaac Peral. The submarine was commissioned in 2013 as part of a new quartet
for the Spanish navy, but there's just one problem
with its modern design once it's submerged, the Isaac Peral may never be able to resurface again. This is because a miraculously
unnoticed flaw in its design means that the ship is around
75-100 tons overweight, which means Spain has essentially
invested in a submarine which can only move in
one direction, down. The mistake is said to have been a result of a pesky decimal point
placed in the wrong place during calculations, and it's a single dot which could cost an extra $9.7
million per meter of the hull which has to be extended
to regain its balance. Considering $680 million
has already been invested in this single ship as
part of a total $3 billion for all four subs, this
is hardly a screw-up which can be brushed under the rug. Although the S-81 is now estimated to join the Spanish fleet
in 2020, it's unclear whether it'll ever see the
light of day, literally. Number 3: Berlin Brandenburg Airport. Berlin Brandenburg
Airport, designed and built to mark Germany's
reunification after the fall of the Berlin wall, is set
to be the third busiest in Germany and one of
the 15 busiest in Europe. It's fitted with modern
terminals, bold structures and even a working railway
station, but not a single passenger has ever
passed through its gates. The multi-billion-dollar
airport was supposed to open in 2012, but all you'll
find there nowadays are operating baggage tracks with no bags and a single ghost-train kept
running to encourage airflow. But why? The global financial
crisis of 2007 and 2008 reduced chances of contractor
and investor involvement, so various politicians pitched in using public money with conflicting ideas. At one point, the capacity
inside the terminal building was doubled after construction
had already began, and after the airport
company realized the designer had not accounted for any shopping, whole new retail floors were ordered. After such setbacks, invitations
for the grand opening were sent out in 2012, but
the ceremony was canceled after the entire fire-prevention system was found to be inoperable. A re-evaluation of the
airport by officials discovered 550,000 faults
which needed fixing before it could be considered
for use, from incorrect lightbulbs to entire cable
systems installed wrong. With millions spent each month to maintain the disused building, the
airport has now cost upwards of $6.5 billion, over three
times its original budget. Number 2: The Vasa. This monumental mistake dates back to 1624 when the Swedish king ordered
one of the most spectacular warships the world has ever seen. The Vasa, a new flagship
of the Swedish navy, was unveiled on 10th August
1628, but to the horror of thousands of excited
onlookers it barely left Stockholm's bay before it sank
105 feet below the surface. With the first gust of wind the warship immediately capsized,
humiliating the King who blamed the long-dead designer Henrik
Hybertsson for its failures. In the Kings Currency the ship cost more than 200,000 Rex Dollars
to build which amounted to over 5% of Sweden's gross
national product for the year. In other words, 1/20th of
the nation's annual income suddenly lay at the bottom
of the Stockholm harbor. If the equivalent percentage
of Sweden's GNP was spent on a single ship today, that
would equal $25.6 billion. Lengthy recovery of The Vasa began in 1956 and continued until 1990,
when the restored 17th-century ship was displayed in The Vasa Museum in 98% of its original glory. Although official salvage
costs were unrecorded and partly funded by the
navy, modern estimates for the recovery of a ship of its size are between $55 and $110
million and the worst part is that archeological examination
suggests that poor design was in fact to blame, as the
gun deck was far too heavy. Number 1: Sale of Alaska. If you're selling something,
you should probably be 100% sure that there's no value
left in it for you first and the sale of Alaska
should be enough to prove it. Alaska was originally owned by Russia and had been a fairly
lucrative source for fur as well as tea and ice, but in 1867 the Russian emperor Alexander II no longer saw any profit
in keeping the territory. Harsh weather conditions
made it hard to farm and its distance meant it was
hard to protect from invasion, so Russia settled an
agreement to sell the region to the US for $7.2 million. At first, the Americans thought
nothing of Alaska either, until in 1896 when a major
gold deposit was discovered in the Yukon; signaling its
true potential as a gateway to a plethora of natural
resources like oil and gold. As the ratio of the
Russian Ruble to the dollar was almost equal back then, not much profit was gained from the sale, but the US has earned its
share back 100 times over. Economists now estimate
the value of its oil and gas reserves alone to be
worth around $200 billion, meaning this is one
mistake which definitely has the Russian emperor
turning in his grave. So, whats the most expensive
mistake you've ever made, and how does it compare? Which one of these
terrible expensive mistakes made you face palm the hardest? Let me know in the comments,
and thanks for watching!
