Causality
Episodes
61: West Gate Bridge
29 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Planned for nearly a century, when the time came to build a permanent link across the Lower Yarra River, a relatively new style of bridge, the box-gir...
60: Carnival Triumph
26 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A leaking flexible pipe started a fire in the Engine Room aboard the Carnival Triumph during its return journey from Mexico in early 2013. The fire ca...
59: Bayer CropScience
30 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
After an extended outage of the Methomyl Unit at the Bayer facility in Institute, West Virginia, the decision was made to commence a restart of the Un...
58: West Fertilizer Company
31 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the early hours of the evening on the 17th of April, 2013 in the small city of West, Texas...smoke was seen emanating from the West Fertilizer Comp...
57: Stardust Nightclub
07 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On Valentines Day in 1981 in the North of Dublin, Ireland a fire broke out in a nightclub just following a Disco Dancing competition. We look at how m...
56: BP Husky Toledo
17 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
On the 20th of September, 2022 at the BP Husky Toledo refinery in Ohio, a level transmitter change out from a month prior triggered a chain of events ...
55: CrowdStrike
19 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
On Friday the 19th of July, 2024 millions of CrowdStrike Falcon Agents the world over would lead to a Windows system crash on business machines throwi...
54: Midland Resource Recovery
25 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In 2017 during an Odoriser decontamination procedure in West Virginia, two people were killed when it unexpectedly exploded. Barely a month later, a s...
53: Callide C Blackout
30 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In 2021 the Callide C Power Station experienced a unit failure that tore the turbine-generator apart, resulted in hundreds of thousands of premises lo...
52: Colonial Pipeline
09 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 2021 many of Colonial Pipelines IT systems were locked by malware and out of caution they shutdown the fuel pipelines feeding nearly half of the Ea...
51: I35 West
27 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The I35W bridge over the Mississippi River carried 140,000 cars every day. Inspections in 1999 and 2003 showed damage to support plates that was dismi...
50: 737 MAX Ethiopian Air
22 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Five months after Lion Air 610 crashed, another 737-MAX went down with a similar cause. However the official report was at odds with two other interna...
49: Carmel Fireworks Explosion
18 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
A fireworks company in Western Australia that had been in business for nearly a century, were preparing for a fireworks display in their packing shed ...
48: Instituto Goiano de Radioterapia
18 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When a radiation therapy machine was left behind during a move between buildings in central Brazil, it set in motion a series of events that would lea...
47: Hyatt Regency Kansas City
15 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The tallest building in Missouri with a large atrium perfect for big bands and dancing, hosted a regular Tea Dance in the summer of 1981. When two wal...
46: Mindbender
16 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The longest, tallest, fastest indoor rollercoaster in the world was only open six months when the last carriage of a train came loose, killing three p...
45: Granville
02 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 1977, a commuter train from the Blue Mountains, destined for Sydney central station would derail just before Granville Station, causing a bridge to...
44: Beirut Warehouse 12
10 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Beirut in August of 2020, an explosion at the Port of Beirut destroyed a huge part of the city. We look into how an oxidising agent, improperly han...
43: Triangle Shirtwaist Factory
09 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In 1911 in Manhattan, New York, a clothing factory went up in flames just before closing time. We look at how faulty equipment, poor design and a fear...
42: Royal Canberra Hospital
16 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The original Royal Canberra Hospital was flagged to be demolished in 1997 to make way for the new National Museum. A demolition via implosion was sele...
41: Florida International University
08 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The university wanted a bridge for its students over a busy roadway that would appear intriguing from afar. Instead it collapsed before it was even fi...
40: Ocean Ranger
24 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The largest semi-submersible Offshore Drilling Rig of its day, sank in a storm in 1982 whilst two smaller nearby rigs survived with minimal damage. We...
39: Therac-25
23 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The successor to the Therac-6 and Therac-20 RadioTherapy machines would integrate the powerful DEC PDP-11 mini-computer to control all of the Therac-2...
38: Thunder River Rapids
24 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A popular family-friendly ride at DreamWorld would claim the lives of four people in 2016. In nearly thirty years of operation the ride had several si...
37: Variola Birmingham
26 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In 1978 on the cusp of the eradication of SmallPox a Medical Photographer became infected and would ultimately die from the Variola virus. We look at ...
36: Big Dig
15 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A series of concrete ceiling tiles in a tunnel portal collapsed on a moving car killing the passenger in downtown Boston in 2006. The selection of the...
35: San Bruno
26 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A modification made in 1956 to a pipeline built in the 1940s would ultimately fail costing 8 people their lives in 2010. We look at what went wrong wi...
34: Aberfan
07 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
One Friday morning in 1966 in a small town in Wales a mining spoils waste tip let go with a river of liquified rubble destroying buildings and a schoo...
33: 737 MAX
30 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
With two crashes in five months of the new 737 4th Generation a design flaw seemed likely. We look at how Boeings focus on cost-avoidance, grandfather...
32: Walkerton
06 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In 2000 the small township of Walkerton Ontario witnessed the largest outbreak of E.Coli infections in Canada's history. The water utility claimed...
31: Black Energy
03 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The evening before Christmas Eve in 2015 saw a widespread blackout of the power grid across the Ukraine. We look at how a cyber-attack on electric uti...
30: Tim Maia
04 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
As part of Rio's preparations for the Olympics in 2016 a cycling pathway was built adjacent to a narrow, congested roadway along a picturesque sho...
29: Flight 1549
04 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In 2009 an AirBus A320 departing LaGuardia Airport in New York suffered a dual engine failure due to a bird strike during takeoff. In a highly improba...
28: Hotel New World
09 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In 1986 an unremarkable building in Singapore collapsed killing dozens of people. We look at how the supervision of the construction and the design it...
27: Gare De Lyon
04 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
On the 27th of June, 1988 in central Paris a runaway train collided with a stationary train in Gare De Lyon station, claiming 56 lives and injuring 60...
26: Bhopal
07 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In December, 1984 in the city of Bhopal in central India, a Union Carbide Pesticide plant would fail and release tonnes of toxic gas into the city, ki...
25: Deepwater Horizon
08 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In 2010 an Oil Drilling Rig suffered a catastrophic well blowout, killing 11 people, destroying the rig and leading to the worst maritime oil spill in...
24: Columbia
13 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In 2003 the Space Shuttle Columbia launched successfully but after its mission was completed burned up on re-entry with the loss of all onboard. We lo...
23: Kipton
31 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
When two trains collided head on at Kipton, Ohio in 1891, it was a wake up call for the railroad industry in North America whose impacts would be far-...
22: Chernobyl
08 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The largest nuclear incident in human history released an estimated 400 times the radioactive material compared to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It all happ...
21: Milford Haven
29 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
A turning point in control systems user interface design and alarm management happened in an unlikely place that few have ever heard of. We look at wh...
20: Stava Dam
24 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
On the 19th of July, 1985 in Tesero, Northern Italy, a tailings dam gave way and killed 268 people. With the most common tailings dam design in the wo...
19: Smiler
22 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
In 2015 at Alton Towers in the UK, The Smiler Rollercoaster experienced a major incident leading to severe injuries for multiple riders. We look at ho...
18: The Fog
14 Sep 2017
Contributed by Lukas
In 1952 a fog in London left 4,000 dead in just 4 days but many more would die before the causes could be rectified. Worse than that, it had happened ...
17: Three Mile Island
02 Jun 2017
Contributed by Lukas
On March 28, 1979 Unit 2 of the Three Mile Island Nuclear Plant in the United States of America an incident would lead to a partial reactor core meltd...
16: Tenerife
10 Mar 2017
Contributed by Lukas
In 1977 on the small island of Tenerife two 747 Jumbo Jets collided on the runway in poor visibility. A miscommunication clearly occurred, but even to...
15: Sampoong Department Store
27 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The Sampoong Department Store in South Korea collapsed in 1995 killing over 500 people. The investigators were shocked to find just how many rules had...
14: Concorde
22 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The Concorde was the first commercially successful supersonic aeroplane that flew for nearly 25 years without a fatality and was considered the safest...
13: Costa Concordia
13 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
A near-new modern cruise liner with all the navigational aids and maps struck rocks and sank killing over 30 people and the man most responsible still...
12: Mont Blanc Tunnel
29 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The Mont Blanc tunnel cut hours off the journey between Italy and France and in 1999 in a fire emergency services were unable to save 38 lives. We loo...
11: Flint Michigan
03 Jul 2016
Contributed by Lukas
For decades Flint Michigan derived safe drinking water from Detroit. When the supply was switched to save money a series of events unfolded and their ...
10: The Comet
05 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The Comet was the worlds first commercial jet aeroplane and those that flew aboard it formed the so-called JetSet. When they started to crash, the wor...
9: Hindenburg
27 Apr 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The largest airship ever constructed burst into flames when trying to land in 1937 in New Jersey in what has become one of the most striking disasters...
8: Challenger
10 Mar 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The Challenger Space Shuttle was directed to launch on the coldest day on record in Florida and 73 seconds after launch it exploded but the engineers ...
7: Piper Alpha
11 Feb 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The Piper Oil field in the North Sea became the site of one of the worst Offshore Oil Rig disasters in history when Piper Platform Alpha went up in fl...
6: Amagasaki
29 Jan 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The Amagasaki rail crash was entirely caused by human error but was it a fear of punishment by the company that was ultimately the cause.With John Chi...
5: Maccabiah
23 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
The 15th Maccabiah Games in 1997 had a temporary bridge for the opening ceremony. The world was shocked when it failed and it did so on every level.Wi...
4: Titanic
11 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
The Titanic famously sank on her maiden voyage with a huge loss of life. No ship is unsinkable.With John Chidgey.Links of potential interest: List of...
3: Fukushima
13 Nov 2015
Contributed by Lukas
What went wrong with Fukushima 1 Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in 2011.With John Chidgey.Links of potential interest: List of Nuclear Power Stations Nu...
2: Don't Roll On Me
30 Oct 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Roll cages in cars are supposed to improve safety but do they actually cause the problem they're trying to protect you from?With John Chidgey.Link...
1: BP Texas City
16 Oct 2015
Contributed by Lukas
The BP Texas City Oil Refinery disaster in 2005 shocked the world. With many safe-guards in place and lost-time injury rates so low, how could so many...
0: Trailer
15 Sep 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Chain of Events. Cause and Effect. We analyse what went right and what went wrong as we discover that many outcomes can be predicted, planned for and ...