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About this episode
From molasses tsunamis to space shuttle tragedies, here are some of history’s most infamous engineering disasters.
Ep 20 - Part 2: Oh The Humanity!!! - The Hindenburg
- A luxury airship explodes mid-air in front of a live radio broadcast. Hydrogen, hubris, and horrific design come together in one fiery crash.
Ep 26 - Part 1: Under Pressure - The Byford Dolphin & The Titan Submersible
- What happens when pressurization systems fail under extreme ocean depths? People don’t just die—they implode.
Ep 61: Engineering Disasters Part 1 - The 1981 Kansas City Hyatt Skywalk Collapse
- Two walkways, a design shortcut, and one horrific ballroom disaster. A case study in load-bearing failure and engineering denial.
Ep 65 - Engineering Disasters Part 2: Tragedy in Bhopal
- A leak at a pesticide plant in India became one of the worst industrial disasters in history—with long-term effects still felt today.
Ep 69 - Click in and Buckle up: Roller Coaster Accidents
- When thrill rides go wrong, it’s never a fun ending. We ride through the history of bolts, brakes, and very bad decisions
Ep 72 - Shopping for Disaster - The Sampoong Department Store Collapse
- A luxury mall built on shaky shortcuts. Spoiler: it literally collapses during a shopping day.
Ep 93 - Disaster at Shift's End: The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire
- Locked doors. No fire escapes. Young women burned alive while trying to flee. A disaster that sparked labor reform—at a horrific cost.
Ep 96 - Doomed to Sink: The Olympic Class Ships of The White Star Line
- The Titanic wasn’t the only one. The whole fleet was a floating disaster factory, with design flaws and bad luck baked in.
Ep 126 - A Sticky Situation: The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919
- Yes, a 15-foot wave of molasses tore through Boston’s North End. It sounds funny—until you realize how many people it drowned.
Ep 132 - Swimming in the Sub-Basement: The Great Chicago Flood of 1992
- A forgotten utility tunnel, a slow leak, and a very flooded downtown. Oops.
Ep 130 - Come One, Come All!: The Hammond Circus Train Wreck
- Two trains, one sleepy engineer, and a whole circus trapped in a fireball. This one’s as tragic as it is surreal.
Ep 138 - Touching the Face of God: Challenger
- A cold morning. A rushed schedule. And an o-ring failure that broke the world’s heart on live TV.
Ep 156: We chased waterfalls - Niagara Falls
- Humans have tried to harness the power of the falls—and sometimes failed very dramatically.
Ep 167: Blood on the Water - The USS Indianapolis
- A secret mission ends in disaster when the ship is torpedoed—and sharks move in. A haunting failure of communication and rescue.
Ep 200: Disaster on the Graveyard Shift - Chernobyl
- A test gone wrong leads to the worst nuclear disaster in history. A chilling lesson in human error and systemic denial.
Ep 202: Ok Place, Totally Wrong Time - Not so Lucky Dragon #5
- A Japanese fishing boat sails into a U.S. nuclear test site—without knowing it. The fallout changes lives and policy.
Ep 210: Do Whatever You Want!! - Action Park, New Jersey
- The most dangerous theme park in America. Rides with no rules, employees with no training, and patrons with no idea what’s coming.
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