laserviking42
from End-World
Since: Oct, 2015
Relationship Status: You're a beautiful woman, probably
#2: May 15th 2022 at 5:21:40 PM
I didn't choose the troping life, the troping life chose me
Alright, it's a big page, so let's start at the top.
Keeping in mind, the trope description for Disaster Dominos is a chain reaction of disasters, i.e. one disaster leads to the next. Here is the first folder, my comments in bold:
Air Disasters
- The main element in most disasters that are investigated in the National Geographic Channel series Seconds from Disaster and Air Crash Investigation. This includes the Tenerife disaster. Seconds from Disaster essentially namechecks this trope in its intro: "Disasters don't just happen. They're a chain of critical events..." General example, cut
- Aeroflot Flight 593
, in which the dominoes began to fall as a result of a single, extremely stupid act.
- The relief pilot, Yaroslav Kudrinsky, decides to let his two children take the controls. While his daughter sits at the controls, he fiddles with the Autopilot's heading knob to give the impression that she's controlling the plane, deviating from the official flight plan. He then puts the autopilot back to normal, and everything is fine again. not really relevant
- Next, it's the turn of his son, Eldar. Eldar states that the "steering wheel" (the yoke) isn't moving easily. This is because the autopilot is in control, and is resisting Eldar's inputs. He continues to yank the yoke until it suddenly moves smoothly. He has disconnected the autopilot from the ailerons, and now he is in control of the plane.note Consequently, a minor with no flight experience whatsoever is now "controlling" a hulking Airbus A300.
- The plane begins to bank to the right. Eldar is the first to notice this, the crew are distracted by a conversation. As the plane banks, it turns 180 degrees, appearing to enter a holding pattern on a screen which displays the flight path, when in fact it's continuing to roll. The crew are confused by this and waste valuable time gazing at the screen and discussing what they see, allowing the situation to worsen. really could have been part of the first point
- Had Eldar let go of the controls, the Autopilot would have re-engaged and corrected the increasing bank angle. However, he doesn't let go. The plane rolls to a 45-degree angle. Without sufficient airflow over the wings, the plane stalls. Unable to cope, the autopilot overloads, goes blank and is forced to power down and restart. we're not wikipedia, we don't need to inform people of how autopilot works
- A secondary automatic system puts the plane into a dive, standard procedure for dealing with a stall since the increased airflow over the wing will generate lift. related how?
- The plane falls from the sky; G-Forces prevent the crew from initially reaching the controls. Finally, Eldar lets go of the yoke, but only because Captain Danilov is now at the controls. By now, the Autopilot may have powered back up, but this is a situation it cannot correct, and will have remained disconnected.
- After struggling with the plane for a minute, it's levelling out. The crew could have let go of the controls now and the autopilot would have worked, but they didn't. Instead, the co-pilot overcorrects the plane, pitching the nose up and inducing another stall. The plane corkscrews and falls out of the sky. Despite the crew recovering from this dive, their altitude is too low, and the plane slams into the ground, killing everyone on board instantly. overall, it could work, but needs to cut alot of the natter
- The Tenerife airport disaster, the worst non-terrorist related aerial disaster ever, happened when two Boeing 747s collided on a foggy runway at Los Rodeos Airport in Tenerife, killing 583 people. Likewise, if just one of twenty or so causes had been otherwise, nothing would have happened. you can read through the list, but as this point says, it's a confluence of bad calls, NOT one disaster leading to another. I would cut the whole thing
- First, the Los Rodeos airport itself was a spare. There had been a terrorist bombing at Gran Canaria airport, so traffic was diverted to Los Rodeos. Both accident aircraft were originally intended to land at Gran Canaria, but instead got diverted to Los Rodeos. In fact, when the accident occurred, both planes were trying to take off to head to Gran Canaria — the airport they were meant to be at in the first place. not a disaster
- Los Rodeos airport is located in a caldera, and that particular day was awfully foggy (as has been known to happen at Los Rodeos), reducing visibility. not a disaster
- Los Rodeos airport has only one runway, while Gran Canaria has two. All air traffic, both landings and take-offs, happened on that single runway.not a disaster
- Los Rodeos airport was awfully crowded and busy that day. The airport was (due to rerouting from the bombing) forced to accommodate a great number of large aircraft, resulting in disruption of the normal use of taxiways. Due to the warm weather, the passengers disembarked for the terminal. Two children registered on the Pan Am plane had decided to goof off and were unaccounted for, delaying the plane receiving permission to taxi while stewards looked for the missing kids.not a disaster
- Due to the large number of diverted aircraft, Los Rodeos' main taxiway was used as an aircraft parking lot. All departing aircraft were therefore forced to taxi the length of the runway, then do a 180-degree backtaxi turn to get into takeoff position.not a disaster
- Long before the day of the accident, the Dutch government had introduced new duty-time regulations designed to combat pilot fatigue. Unfortunately, while these regulations were well-intentioned, they were clearly a political proposal made with no regard for the realities of commercial aviation, meaning the implications they had for flight safety weren't exactly in line with the intent. The regulations were inflexible, perhaps even unreasonably so; going overtime was potentially a criminal offense, and not even circumstances beyond the crew's control—such as the destination airport being closed for hours due to a terrorist bombing—were an acceptable reason for overtime. This resulted in the KLM captain panicking about potentially having to find accommodation for his passengers and cause scheduling problems back in Amsterdam, warping his decision making and causing get-there-itis once Gran Canaria was reopened.not a disaster
- Both the KLM and Pan Am jets were heading to Gran Canaria. The Pan Am jet was ready to go, but the KLM jet was ahead of it and was being refuelled, and the Pan Am crew found they didn't have sufficient room to maneuver around the other plane and were thus forced to wait. The refuelling took 35 minutes, allowing the fog to settle in. It also added forty tonnes of weight to the KLM jet, meaning that the KLM would need more runway space to take off.not a disaster
- Even worse, the refuelling was completely unnecessary because the KLM jet already had more than enough fuel to fly to Las Palmas. The pilot decided to refuel at Los Rodeos to avoid an additional delay at Las Palmas, but it didn't occur to him until he actually began to worry about flight time rules, several hours in; by this time, it was late enough that Las Palmas reopened while the refuelling was still underway. Had the KLM captain thought to get the plane refuelled earlier, they would have been able to leave 35 minutes sooner, relieving some of the time pressure and potentially allowing them to get underway before the fog got so thick.not a disaster
- The Pan Am jet was directed to head on connection and take "the third taxiway" off the runway — the operator didn't specify if he meant third from the start of the runway (taxiway C-3) or third from their location (taxiway C-4). When they contacted the tower for clarification, the controller condescendingly replied, "The third one, sir. One, two, three, third. Third one," which clarified absolutely nothing. The 148-degree turn onto C-3 was very difficult to perform on a fully laden Boeing 747, while C-4 was a much easier 45-degree turn. The decision was made that the controller meant third literally and not as a replacement for the word three — a theory supported, as they saw it, by the potential difficulty of making the turn onto C-3. They proceeded to head for C-4.not a disaster
- The Los Rodeos flight control gave the KLM plane the IFR departure clearance, which is permission to fly to the destination. It is not a permission for take-off, though; the Dutch crew misinterpreted the clearance as permission for take-off.not a disaster
- There was a language confusion of Dutch, Spanish, and English. The tower international communication was in Spanish and the KLM cockpit crew used Dutch for internal communication. The KLM crew spoke with heavy Dutch accents, making it impossible for the Spanish tower crew to understand them. The Pan Am crew spoke American English. The tower used non-standard phrases when communicating with the planes. There is a reason why no matter what airport you go to in the world, no matter what pilot you meet, they all are now trained to speak standardized English as the universal language of aviation communication.unfortunate, but not a disaster
- The KLM crew asked for permission for take-off. The tower told them "OK, stand by for take-off, I will call you", but at the same time, the Pan Am captain spoke on the same radio channel as the KLM captain, causing a heterodyne (a loud buzzing noise), so all the KLM crew heard before the buzzing was "OK". Correct radio protocol in such a case (known as "blocking") is for the sending station to retransmit the blocked message - and if the block occurs again, the ground controller speaks first and instructs the aircraft of his/her choice to speak, then so on until all messages have been successfully relayed — this was not done, and none of the messages were repeated.not a disaster
- The content of the Pan Am message was also critical (and lost): "We are still taxiing down the runway, Clipper 1736!" Had the KLM heard this message either, the disaster would have not happened. so much natter
- The tower had told the Pan Am, on a message audible in the KLM cockpit, to "report when runway clear". However, they referred to the Pan Am by a non-standard designation (not used at any other time during the conversation) rather than by its callsign, which kept the KLM crew from fully registering that this was directed at the Pan Am, and was a sign they were still not clear. third level bullets really not needed.
- Some evidence suggests the controllers may have also been distracted, as sounds on the cockpit voice recorders from the KLM and the Pan Am suggested that when the crash was unfolding, the Spanish control tower crew may have been listening to a football match on the radio, blatantly violating the work regulations. And the football match on the radio was so loud that the game was audible on radio communications with both the KLM and Pan Am. speculation, natter, again not really a flowing set of disasters
- Los Rodeos airport did not have ground radar, and because of the dense fog, the tower did not have the faintest idea where the 747s actually were.
- The KLM captain was impatient as the flight had been late for several hours. He decided to go, disregarding the KLM executive officer's advice to check their situation with the tower. The XO was reluctant to oppose the captain, especially this captain — Jacob Veldhuyzen van Zanten was the most senior KLM captain, and also the chief of the company flight security. First Officer Klaas Meurs did voice concerns but was unwilling to make a firm statement.
- When the KLM captain revved the engines and started the take-off run, the Pan Am jet was still making for Taxiway 4. Due to the dense fog, the planes were unable to see each other until they were just a few hundred feet apart and barely 11 seconds away from collision. Just for that final bit of cruel irony, KLM Flight Engineer Willem Schreuder, who had been trying to listen in on the radio chatter during the take-off, seemed to realize something was wrong and outright asked van Zanten if they're sure the Pan Am was clear of the runway, to which the focused captain cheerfully replied "Oh, yes!"
- It's here that the KLM captain's decision to refuel would prove to be a critical error. Without the extra fuel load, the KLM plane would have reached takeoff speed much sooner and would never have reached the point on the runway where the accident occurred. yes, I too have read the WP article on this which made the exact same point
- Upon seeing the Pan Am's lights in the runway ahead of him and already above his V1 speed, van Zanten attempted to lift off despite having insufficient speed to loft the aircraft, but enough to lift the nose. As a result, he ended up dragging the KLM 747's tail on the runway for 77 feet, which only slowed their acceleration that much more. Because of this, the KLM plane actually lifted off further down the runway — and closer to the Pan Am — than it would have if he had continued the takeoff roll normally; if he hadn't tried to lift off early, he probably would have gotten off the ground in enough time to avert tragedy, if only just. As it was, the KLM plane left the ground only 100 feet away from the Pan Am's side, leaving them with insufficient room to clear the other aircraft.
- At this point, one of the dominoes tips away from disaster. Seeing the oncoming KLM's lights, the Pan Am pilot, Captain Victor Grubbs, pulls the throttle up to full power and attempts to drive his aircraft off the runway and onto the grass median to get out of the way. Had he not done this, the planes would have collided nose-to-nose, likely destroying both completely and killing everybody. the domino tips away from disaster???
- The KLM's port engine strikes the top of the Pan Am. This destroys its port outboard engine, ripping it off the wing. The port inboard engine ingests shredded metal and other debris and is immediately destroyed. The right side engines take off the Pan Am's upper fuselage just aft of the flight deck while its main landing gear rams against the Pan Am's starboard wing and crash through the right side of the fuselage and are themselves destroyed by the impact. Structurally, the KLM plane is badly damaged but possibly able to produce lift. However, with all four engines destroyed on impact, the aircraft has no thrust or hydraulic pressure for control. The plane stalls, rolls over and hits the runway 500 feet away. The wreck slides another thousand feet before coming to a stop. It's here that the refueling decision rears its head one final time — the full fuel load causes the wreckage to explode into flame almost instantly, killing anyone who might have survived the impact note . nitty gritty not really related, but someone is eager to go off on tangents
- In the aftermath, airport fire services concentrate on the flaming wreckage of the KLM aircraft, unaware that the Pan Am was also involved. 61 survivors escape the wreckage, most of them by exiting the plane onto the surviving left wing and eventually jumping down to the ground to walk toward the terminal buildings when rescue teams don't show up, but rescue crews arrive too late to save other survivors who might have been trapped or otherwise unable to escape. (At least one survivor recalled seeing trapped passengers screaming as the fire made its way through what was left of the aircraft.)again, unrelated to previous disasters
- While the Pan-Am crew's decision to firewall the throttles and try to get off the runway saved lives, it did also have a negative consequence. After the impact, the Pan-Am was no longer capable of moving, but all of its engines were still running at maximum power. These engines are only designed to operate at full power for a few minutes before being throttled back to climb power. Worse, all engine controls were destroyed when the flight deck's roof was ripped off and the crew couldn't shut them down. After a few minutes of full-power operation, the engines started to disintegrate, throwing pieces of high-velocity metal around which resulted in the decapitation of at least one person.
- The Linate Airport disaster in Milan, Italy on October 8, 2001, happened when a taking off Scandinavian Airlines System McDonnell-Douglas MD-87 collided in thick fog with a Cessna business jet on the runway, killing 118 people (all 110 on the MD-87, all four on the Cessna, and four people in a hangar that the MD-87 slammed into). It is practically a smaller-scale version of the Tenerife Airport disaster for these reasons:Since someone saw the Tenerife example, they decided to add another runway collision that is similar, going so far as to relate the two
- Both accidents happened in thick fog, at airports where there was no functioning ground radar system for tower controllers to monitor aircraft.not a disaster
- Like the Pan Am plane, the Cessna ended up on the runway in the path of an aircraft that was taking off. But unlike the Pan Am, the Cessna was way off course. According to this diagram◊, when it left the apron, it was to turn left and take the north taxiway, R5, to get to the main taxiway. This would get the Cessna to the taxiway without having to cross the runway. Instead, the plane turned south and took taxiway R6, which meant it crossed onto the runway, right in the path of the departing MD-87. The MD-87, Linate's analogy for the KLM plane, was not at fault because it was doing everything it was supposed to up until the moment of collision.great blow by blow of the disaster, still not connecting the dominos
- Further contributing to the problem was that the taxiway signage did not meet ICAO requirements, so once the Cessna was on the wrong taxiway, there was no way it could identify its position.unfortunate, but not a disaster
- Neither pilot on the Cessna was certified for landings in visibility conditions shorter than 1,804 feet but had landed at the airport anyway a few minutes before the disaster.
- An alarm that was designed to warn air traffic controllers of exactly this kind of thing had been disabled because it kept giving off false alarms. (And even if it had been working, the history of false alarms would have complicated the situation, making it harder for controllers to recognize it as a legitimate emergency.)
- Yet another similar accident occurred at the Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport in 1990, involving two Northwest Airlines planes. In this one, a single, critical moment manages to prevent the accident from being a total catastrophe.another similar accident, but this time not an accident, RL has no aversions, cut the whole thing
- Like both of the previous crashes, this one occurred in heavy fog, making it difficult for pilots to see where they were going.
- The pilots of one of the two planes, Northwest Flight 1482, were not familiar with the airport and missed their turn onto the taxiway. Controllers gave the pilots alternate instructions which involved a confusing and poorly-marked intersection; they subsequently misunderstood the signage and turned onto the active runway.
- Meanwhile, Northwest Flight 299 had properly executed the taxi and were cleared for takeoff, but hesitated momentarily because of a concern over whether they had the minimum required visibility. After briefly talking it over, they decided to trust the tower's report, which was telling them they did have minimum visibility, rather than their own estimations.note
- When they realized their mistake, the pilot of Flight 1482 informed Air Traffic Control that they believed they had accidentally turned onto the runway. The ground controller relayed this information to his colleagues and ordered all planes taxiing to stop until they sorted out the issue, but the tower controller did not warn Flight 299 because he believed they'd already taken off. In fact, because of the short delay, they didn't begin their takeoff roll until after Flight 1482 was already on the runway.
- It's here that a critical domino falls away from disaster. When he sees the other plane on the runway, the first officer of Flight 299 has the presence of mind to realize that it's off to one side of the runway, and immediately steers his own plane as far over to the opposite side as possible. He's not able to completely avoid the other plane, but his action means that he strikes Flight 1482 only with a wing, as opposed to hitting it with the bulk of the aircraft as had happened in Tenerife and Milan. Because of this, 36 of the 44 people aboard Flight 1482 survive, while all 154 people on Flight 299 walk away unharmed. But there are still 8 dead, 10 injured, mental trauma to any number of survivors, one aircraft destroyed and another seriously damaged but repairable.
- In 1991, yet another runway collision occurred, this time at Los Angeles International, between a landing US Air 737 and a Skywest Metroliner waiting to take off. While this one was ultimately traceable to a single cause — an error made by an air traffic controller — several pieces stacked up to cause the error.one runway collision leads to multiple entries of runway collisions, this one both a "single cause" and "several pieces stacked up
- The controller was dealing with several preexisting problems that prevented her from visually confirming information. A light post obstructed the view from the tower, and their ground radar was out of service.
- The controller cleared the Skywest plane to taxi onto the runway but instructed them to hold so that another plane could cross the runway in front of them. When she went to instruct the other plane to cross, she couldn't get a hold of them because they had accidentally changed radio frequencies. They eventually determined the error and switched back, but not before she'd spent close to a minute trying to contact them.
- Just as that plane crossed and was handed off, another plane contacted her. She didn't recognize the plane and didn't have the flight strip for it, which immediately captured her focus. Some of her conversations with the plane also suggest that she may have confused this aircraft with the Skywest plane already on the runway. (She asked the other plane if they were "at 47", the intersection where the Skywest plane was waiting to depart.)
- For reasons unknown (due to the fact that the Skywest plane had no cockpit voice recorder), the Skywest pilots did not reestablish contact with the tower to remind the controller that they were in position or request further instructions. Thereafter, pilots were specifically encouraged to reach out to the controller if their wait was abnormally long.
- The US Air plane had already called several times and was now on short final, meaning the controller needed to handle the situation quickly. Unable to see Skywest plane and not remembering that the runway was not clear, she inadvertently cleared the Us Air aircraft to land on the occupied runway.
- The landing was at night, and the Skywest plane didn't have all their exterior lights turned on. The lights they had activated were virtually indistinguishable from the runway lights, so the US Air pilots couldn't see that the runway was occupied until it was far too late.
- Because of the sheer size difference between the two planes, the Skywest plane was totally destroyed, but the impact did not damage the US Air plane as badly as it could have. However, the collision did lead to a fire that began to consume the 737, and there were multiple delays in the post-crash evacuation. One door was inoperable and another three were quickly blocked by fire; of the two remaining doors, one, an overwing exit, was the site of several delays, including a brief altercation between two passengers, which meant that survivors could not get out in an expedient manner. Based on the position of the bodies, the NTSB concluded that most of those who died aboard the 737 had survived the impact, but succumbed to the smoke and fire because they couldn't get out fast enough.
- The Gimli Glider event, which was a relatively contrived coincidence of misunderstandings between several people, poor design of several key systems, Unit Confusion and technical problems, that led to a Boeing 767 running dry. Very fortuitously the captain was an experienced glider pilot, which most probably saved the lives of everybody. (Indeed, in later attempts to recreate the flight in simulators, no other pilot was able to land the plane safely.)close call, but no disaster ensued, cut
- The Uberlingen disaster, a 2002 mid-air collision between a passenger plane and a cargo plane that killed 70, was the result of an exceptionally improbable chain of events.again, this entry describes a confluence of bad calls, with little to determine the domino chain
- First off, the system flaw that was a key piece of the crash was known to the aviation industry prior to the accident, as there had been a near-miss the year before over Japan. Japan had asked the International Civil Aviation Organization to resolve the problem, but they were still in the process of discussing the potential changes when the later accident occurred.
- The passenger plane wasn't a regularly scheduled flight; it was chartered at the last minute by a Russian school group. The group was meant to have flown out two days earlier but had missed the earlier flight due to confusion about which airport the flight was leaving from. If the school group had made their original flight, the passenger plane wouldn't have been anywhere near that airspace on the critical night.
- Even with the passenger plane flying that night, the odds of the two planes coming together was exceptionally low. The two planes' flight plans intersected at only a single point in space; the chances that both planes would be crossing that point at exactly the same time are relatively small. If either plane had been running literally a minute earlier or later, there would have been no collision. note
- On this particular night, the air traffic control center that covers that area is undergoing maintenance. Because of this, some of the systems are down, including one that would warn if two planes were in danger of colliding. The control center's phone lines are also disrupted. Adding to the confusion, the controllers on duty aren't given a comprehensive rundown of which systems are affected, so they're not fully aware of what is and isn't working.
- Shortly before the accident, one of the two air traffic controllers on duty takes an extended break, which is against company policy but is nonetheless common. This leaves the remaining controller, Peter Nielsen, handling two screens at once (which, incidentally, is exactly why this practice is against the rules).
- Normally, the controllers on this shift don't handle takeoffs and landings, but on this particular night, a delayed flight is coming in to land at Friedrichshafen Airport in southern Germany. Nielsen tries to contact the airport, but this takes longer than anticipated because most of the phone lines are down; he ultimately has to resort to having the pilots call the air traffic control center on their backup radio and essentially relay the handoff. It's as he's sorting this out that the two other planes start to get troublingly close to each other.
- A controller at another air traffic control center notices the conflict and tries to call the Zurich control center to warn them, but can't get through because the phone lines are down. ATC rules prohibit him from making direct contact with the pilots.
- The two planes involved in the accident are equipped with an electronic system called TCAS designed to prevent mid-air collisions. As the two planes close on each other, their TCAS systems warn the pilots of impending collision and issue instructions to keep them clear of each other, instructing the passenger plane to climb and the cargo plane to descend. At this point, if no further action had been taken by air traffic control, the system would have worked as intended and there would have been no collision.
- Unfortunately, at this exact moment, Nielsen realizes the planes are on a collision course. Unaware of the TCAS instructions, he instructs the passenger plane to descend. At this point in time, there is no universal standard for what pilots should do if controller instructions contradict TCASnote , so the passenger plane's pilots default to their training to prioritize controller instructions above all else. The pilots of the other plane receive no controller instructions and therefore descend in accordance with their TCAS instructions. They report this action over the radio but the transmission doesn't go through.
- Stressed and overwhelmed, Nielsen makes a mistake and tells the pilots of the passenger plane that the cargo plane is at their two o'clock (to the right) when it's actually at their ten o'clock (to the left). Given the fact that it's night and the speed at which the two planes are closing, it's uncertain whether even giving them the correct information would have been enough to avoid the accidentnote , but this error costs them whatever chance they might have had.
- Nielsen believes he's averted a collision, but he can't stick around to keep an eye on the situation (which might have allowed him to realize, and correct, his error); the other controller still isn't back yet, and the landing plane needs his attention. By the time he checks back in on the Russian plane, it will be too late.
- When they finally see each other, the passenger plane pilots finally realize their mistake and try to climb, while the cargo plane tries to further increase their descent, but it's too late. The tail fin of the cargo plane slices through the fuselage of the passenger plane, ripping it in two. The cargo plane briefly remains aloft but it's uncontrollable, having lost its vertical stabilizer in the collision, and it crashes only a few miles away.
- And then, just to add one last horror onto this whole horrific mess, two years later, a man who lost his family in the crash and blames Nielsen tracks Nielsen down and stabs him to death.
- British Airways Flight 5390. On June 19, 1990, thirteen minutes into a routine flight from Birmingham, England, to Andalusia, Spain, suffered Explosive Decompression when one of the forward windscreens ripped lose from its frame. Only the heroic efforts of the flight crew kept this from becoming a true tragedy.this one, maybe counts, but there is far too much extraneous detail
- During routine maintenance a little over a day earlier, the flight mechanic decided to replace the windscreen and install it with fresh bolts, rather than reuse the old ones. But he decided to eyeball the correct size, rather than consult the on-site manual or heed the advice of the night manager. And because of the plane's placement in the hangar (close to the wall and in bad lighting), he didn't have the proper angle to see that the bolts he chose didn't fit correctly.
- The next morning, approximately thirteen minutes into the flight, the bolts gave way, blowing out the windscreen and taking the flight's captain, Tim Lancaster, with it.
- Lancaster managed not to get thrown clear of the plane, because his knees were caught in the controls. But that also meant that the plane was now entering a steep dive, with the first officer, Alastair Atchison, struggling to regain control from the other side of the cockpit. A cockpit that was now basically a freezing wind tunnel.
- They managed to free Lancaster's legs, and Atchison was able to pull out of the dive. The cabin crew maintained a grip on the captain's legs, rather than let him go. While they assumed he was already dead, they couldn't risk his body flying free and hiting one of the wings or engines.
- While approaching for an emegency landing at Southampton, Atchison realized they were coming in too heavy: They were still carrying most of the fuel from a planned two-hour flight and that model jet, a BAC One-Eleven, couldn't dump fuel. There was every chance he could do everything right and still crash because the landing gear couldn't take the weight.
- Atchison managed a perfect landing at Southampton, twenty minutes after the initial disaster, and all passengers and crew disembarked unharmed, with two exceptions. One was Captain Lancaster, who miraculously survived the ordeal, though with severe frostbite and several broken bones. The only other injuries were suffered by the lead steward, Nigel Ogden, who hung on to Lancaster's legs until fatigue and frostbite forced him to switch with two other stewards. He suffered a dislocated shoulder and an eye injury, along with the frostbite. Both men made full recoveries, and Lancaster continued to fly.
bwburke94
Friends forevermore
from uǝʌɐǝɥ
Since: May, 2014
Relationship Status: RelationshipOutOfBoundsException: 1
Friends forevermore
#3: May 15th 2022 at 7:54:14 PM
The Sports and Television folders should be easy cuts, as none of the examples even remotely qualify. They're at best chains of events which don't spiral into anything.
I had a dog-themed avatar before it was cool.
Nen_desharu
Nintendo Fanatic Extraordinaire
from Greater Smash Bros. Universe or Toronto
Since: Aug, 2020
Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Nintendo Fanatic Extraordinaire
#4: May 15th 2022 at 8:13:52 PM
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
While we're at it, Com Mons, Creator.CBS, Creator.Fox, Creator.Fox Kids, Creator.Global Television Network, Creator.NBC, ItWillNeverCatchOn.Real Life, One Game for the Price of Two, ScrewThisImOuttaHere.Real Life, UsefulNotes.The Nineties, and many other pages mention "see the Real Life section of Disaster Dominoes for details." A more thorough wick check of what I did for Disaster Dominoes will be needed.
Please do a thorough wick check here to remove inappropriate examples: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/relatedsearch.php?term=DisasterDominoes/RealLife (there's only 6)
Edited by Nen_desharu on May 15th 2022 at 11:15:48 AM
Kirby is awesome.
laserviking42
from End-World
Since: Oct, 2015
Relationship Status: You're a beautiful woman, probably
#5: May 15th 2022 at 8:46:31 PM
I'll check the wicks tomorrow.
Could someone take a look at my earlier post and see if there is anything worth salvaging there?
I didn't choose the troping life, the troping life chose me
BoltDMC
Since: May, 2020
#6: May 16th 2022 at 3:43:50 AM
Just had a chance to poke in. Agreed with everything, cut away.
Also agreed. Chainsaw both fully.
Looked at the entries under “Other.” One looks general and the other is a ZCE with only a link. I plan to cut both soon unless there are objections.
Hoping to get a chance to look at this in more detail soon.
Edited by BoltDMC on May 16th 2022 at 3:45:38 AM
BoltDMC
Since: May, 2020
#7: May 16th 2022 at 3:50:51 AM
The Celebrities folder has two examples. I don’t think these qualify as either dominoes or actual disaster. Will cut the folder soon unless anyone objects.
Edited by BoltDMC on May 16th 2022 at 3:51:43 AM
BoltDMC
Since: May, 2020
#8: May 16th 2022 at 5:05:52 AM
I think this one is an easy cut, as it's a nattery mess.
- The March 2011 disaster in Japan could be disaster dominoes within disaster dominoes. First you have the most powerful earthquake in the country's history, which triggers a huge tsunami, which damages the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, and then things at the plant get progressively worse and worse and worse. And the number of deaths directly due to the Fukushima disaster? Zero. Pretty good engineering there. The amount of radiation that was released will likely spike the cancer and other illness rates for years to come, with no direct link to the disaster provable. It's nowhere near the scope of Chernobyl, but, like all nuclear accidents, it's proper to say that not only can we not yet say that the dominoes have stopped, but indeed we may never even know if they'll ever stop or even how many were knocked down.
Will cut shortly unless there are objections.
BoltDMC
Since: May, 2020
#9: May 16th 2022 at 5:07:37 AM
Also think the one under Software can be cut as it's not really a disaster and also not so sure of the dominoes. Not to mention natter.
- npm is the package manager for Node, a popular framework for developing Javascript-based web applications. The developer of several highly-used packages had also created one called "kik", a module for assisting in the creation of projects. One day, the owners of an unrelated messaging app also known as Kik sent a complaint to npm's operators, arguing that the kik package was infringing its trademarks. In compliance, "kik" was taken down and Kik was given rights to use the package name. However, in retaliation, the developer of "kik" took down all of their other modules from npm, including "left-pad", a module containing a mere 11 lines of code to implement a function that pads out string values. Of course, despite some developers questioning why such a basic thing needed to be implemented as an entire package, this package was widely used by many major Node projects and applications, and briefly broke them because they were unable to download their dependencies through npm.
Getting rid of this one unless there are objections.
Edited by BoltDMC on May 16th 2022 at 5:08:24 AM
BoltDMC
Since: May, 2020
#10: May 16th 2022 at 5:11:07 AM
And the one under Technology can also go. Not convinced this is a disaster.
Technology
- Sega's exit from the hardware market is definitely one of these. In 1991, the company made it big in the video game industry when releasing Sonic the Hedgehog for the Sega Genesis, all while running a loud and competitive advertising campaign against rival Nintendo and the SNES ("SEGA DOES WHAT NINTENDON'T")", while also being aided by Aladdin (Virgin Games), NBA Jam, Night Trap, and the uncensored version of Mortal Kombat 1, which helped make them Nintendo's first major competitor in the console market and helped them push back against the SNES and games like Super Mario World and Street Fighter II. However, this began to fall apart quickly:
- In 1994, Sega took notice of disgraced console maker Atari's upcoming Atari Jaguar, as well as Sony's forthcoming Play Station, and made the Sega 32 X as a competitor to both, as well as a 32-bit upgrade to the Genesis. The 32X bombed hard, being considered a commercial failure and lacking a big Killer App to get people to buy it. What didn't help is that in the same year, Nintendo fired back on Sega's years of competitiveness by releasing big titles like Donkey Kong Countrynote , Super Metroid, Killer Instinct, and Squaresoft's Final Fantasy VI. The result? The SNES took back the lead in the console wars, and was able to remain relevant into the 32-bit era, while Sega was left scrambling on their feet.
- At the same time as this, Sega was also developing the Sega Saturn, which was revealed to the world at E3 1995...and was not only released on the same day without any warning, but also featured a hefty (for its time) $399.99 price tag, which Sony's spokesman at the same event famously rebutted to by only saying "$299". What didn't help is that the Sega Saturn was advertised terribly in western regions when compared to Japan, where it had commercials featuring Memetic Badass Segata Sanshiro. What didn't help matters either was the technology Sega decided to go with for the Sega Saturn; instead of using technology capable of rendering 3D polygonal models, like the PlayStation or Nintendo 64 did, the Saturn utilized technology that focused on enhancing sprites, which made it a bitch to develop for unless if you were developing 2D fighting games.
- Much of the problems described above stemmed from a bad case of Right Hand Vs Left Hand — infighting between the Japanese branch and their Western counterparts had reached endemic levels by this point. It can be attributed at least partially due to the insane success Sega of America and Sega of Europe had in marketing the Genesis/Mega Drive, while back in Japan the Mega Drive was mired in third place behind both Nintendo and the PC Engine. As a result, Sega of Japan, out of jealousy, began to make all sorts of odd moves which were supposed to help them conquer Japan while snubbing America and Europe in the process, which explains why the 32X had been released when the Saturn was right around the corner; neither side was communicating to the other over what to do. Sega hiring the infamous Bernie Stolar, fresh off an infamous reign as the head of Sony's American video game division, twisted the knife further; while correct in his assumption that the Saturn was badly-designed, he prevented almost any of the popular games on the platform from reaching North America, including a metric ton of JRPGs and 2D games, because of his "the only good games are 3D" attitude and generally blowing off third-party developers,
- The Sega Saturn also lacked a mainline Sonic title (with Sonic Xtreme being cancelled thanks to an infamously Troubled Production), instead relying on smaller titles like Panzer Dragoon, Sakura Wars, Virtua Fighter, and NiGHTS into Dreams…. While these games are considered classics and still beloved, they didn't have the mainstream appeal that Sonic had in the west, and didn't help the Saturn much at all. Sega's last and largest gamble with the Saturn was Panzer Dragoon Saga, an ambitious four-disc JRPG that was supposed to serve as the Saturn's answer to the PlayStation's Final Fantasy VII. And while Saga was acclaimed, it had an incredibly Troubled Production and was a financial failure.
- By this time, Sega was already moving onto the console they were hedging all of their remaining bets on, with was the Dreamcast, which had already hit a snag because it utilized Hitachi-based architecture, rather than the 3Dfx architecture favored by western developers like Electronic Arts, whose sports titles helped sell Sega systems (indeed, the secrecy surrounding the new console was blown when 3Dfx reported their negotiations with Sega as part of a financial statement). EA ultimately chose to completely withdraw from the Dreamcast, in part because of the design choice, but also because of their desire to be the only sports company for the platform. However, this did result in Sega establishing Visual Concepts (one of the reasons they lost EA was because they'd bought VC to make sports games for them) and the 2K sports brand, who became the first major competitor to EA's sports titles.
- Unlike the Saturn, the Dreamcast's launch was a success, featuring an extensive lineup of titles such as Sonic Adventure, Soulcalibur, Power Stone, NFL 2K, and The House of the Dead 2, and would later get titles like Crazy Taxi, Resident Evil – Code: Veronica, Phantasy Star Online, Quake III: Arena, and Marvel vs. Capcom 2. However, most of these games were either multiplayer titles or arcade ports, and with single-player story-based games like The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Metal Gear Solid proving to be defining titles for their respective consoles, it made Sega's selection of titles look rather meager in comparison, not to mention that the Play Station 2's upcoming release was beginning to drown out all of the excitement that was present for the Dreamcast's launch. With all of that in mind, Sega took one last gambit in hopes of securing the Dreamcast's success - by making their own single-player story-based title.
- Shenmue, the title in question, was one of the most ambitious projects of its day, if not the most ambitious, boasting a budget of $48-70 million USD, it was the most expensive game of its time, and featured many gameplay features that would become standard for future games, such as an open-world, a brawling-based combat system, a day and night cycle, weather effect, highly detailed NPC cycles, an assortment of minigames, and a big cinematic narrative. The game was acclaimed and considered revolutionary - but Sega spent so much on it that recouping any of that cost was an uphill battle, and by the time it released, the PlayStation 2 had already arrived and stolen all of the Dreamcast's thunder, Nintendo had already announced their own next-generation console (then known as "Dolphin"), and Microsoft had announced their own entry into the console market. Thus Shenmue, while considered ambitious and a step forward for the medium, was a failure.
- During the Dreamcast's lifespan, Sega was in danger of going bankrupt and being permanently liquidated, until chairman Isao Okawa gave a loan of $500 million to Sega in 1999, and upon his death in early 2001, gave Sega another loan of $695 million while waiving all of their debts to him, thus allowing them to become a multiplatform publisher and release games like Sonic Adventure 2 on the GameCube, Virtua Fighter 4 on the PlayStation 2, and Panzer Dragoon Orta on the Xbox. However, all of the events mentioned - the 32X, the disastrous launch of the Saturn, the lack of popularity enjoyed by the Dreamcast, and the overspending on projects like Panzer Dragoon Saga and Shenmue - all lined up to bring Sega down from being a mighty and aggressive console manufacturer to being a third-party game publisher.
I'm planning to put this one out of everyone's misery unless there's an objection.
BoltDMC
Since: May, 2020
#11: May 16th 2022 at 5:15:46 AM
The three entries under Economic can also go. The first is "arguable" and thus not likely relevant as well as too general. The second is unfocused and all over the place. The last doesn't seem like much of a disaster to me — if we open the door here, we're looking at every example of a stock meltdown for the page, and I don't want it.
Economic
- The Bronze Age Collapse is purported to have been this by the "general systems collapse" theory. To start with, climate change resulted in earthquakes and widespread famine across the region, leading to depopulation of key cities. These in turn led to civil unrest and peasants overthrowing their ruling classes. These events resulted in massive disruption of international trade, weakening every state involved and leaving them ripe for the Sea People invasions. Not only did these crises loop into each other, but magnified the resulting devastation.
- The current economic woe is an excellent example of disaster dominoes. It begins with a typical bankers' scheme, which fails and drags the economy with it, which force the governments to bail said bankers, in which taxpayer's money is spent for the bailing, in turn causing the governments to adopt a more austere financial policy, which then makes said taxpayers unable to right the course of the economy because no business can be done...
- Which then joins another set of dominoes in the form of: climate chaos, which causes crop failure, which causes food riot, which causes social destabilization... Real Life is sometimes more exciting than fiction.
- Brazil in turn had climate chaos, leading to a heatwave, a massive drought (the rain couldn't reach the hot area — which concentrates most of the population), and energetic shortcomings (hydroelectricity is the major provider) concurrent to their economic woes in 2014-15.
- The Reddit/GameStop stock surge in January of 2021 was the end result of a small chain of events. A hedge fund was "short selling" stocknote in the company GameStop, hoping to cash in on the company's decreasing profits. However, people on Reddit took notice of this due to the r/WallStreetBets subreddit, and noticed that it was happening so badly that there were more shares being borrowed than the company had even issued. To counter this, a whole bunch of small investors started buying shares in the company and then keeping them, raising the prices of the shares significantly. In response, the hedge fund investors tried another round of short selling in an attempt to lower the price, but all that did was enrage the Redditors even more, who then bought shares in the company en masse. By the time the surge started slowing down, GameStop's stock was up around 1,700% than it was at the beginning of the month, and the multibillion dollar hedge fund Melvin Capital was on the verge of complete insolvency.
Cutting all of them unless there's serious objection.
BoltDMC
Since: May, 2020
#12: May 16th 2022 at 5:20:19 AM
Question: do any of the examples under Politics constitute a disaster? The examples are all about winning or losing an election, and while no candidate wants to lose, it hardly qualifies as a "disaster." More importantly, that would seem to violate ROCEJ.
I say cut the whole shebang. Any serious objection?
BoltDMC
Since: May, 2020
#13: May 16th 2022 at 5:54:13 AM
The trope description on the main page here mentions troping this in Real Life. It probably needs to be either looked at or deleted.
laserviking42
from End-World
Since: Oct, 2015
Relationship Status: You're a beautiful woman, probably
#14: May 16th 2022 at 4:36:47 PM
Alright, I've cut the Air Disasters, Sports and Television folders, as no one saw anything salvageable there.
I've also cut the wicks that led to those examples (mainly Fox Kids and Wonder Years).
I'll look through some more folders after I get some food.
I didn't choose the troping life, the troping life chose me
laserviking42
from End-World
Since: Oct, 2015
Relationship Status: You're a beautiful woman, probably
#15: May 16th 2022 at 5:06:14 PM
Yeah, I've seen that Sega one before somewhere, and it hasn't changed. These are just detailing disasters, not the domino effect that the trope requires.
Go ahead and cut Technology and Economics as well.
I didn't choose the troping life, the troping life chose me
laserviking42
from End-World
Since: Oct, 2015
Relationship Status: You're a beautiful woman, probably
#16: May 16th 2022 at 5:56:42 PM
I didn't choose the troping life, the troping life chose me
Easy one:
Celebrities
- The sexual assault allegations against and career implosion of Bill Cosby all started because of a joke rising comedian Hannibal Burress made about him during a stand-up show. one action does not a Disaster Dominos make
- Even more impactful than Cosby was the case of once-powerful studio executive Harvey Weinstein, whose decades-long spree of sexual harassment, sexual assault, and rape ultimately not only started a movement, but it also led to other people in other corners of the entertainment business (Weinstein's brother Bob, Kevin Spacey, Matt Lauer, Charlie Rose, Les Moonves, just to name a tiny few) having similar allegations against them brought to light, resulting in their careers being subsequently torpedoed.the initial "domino" was the NYT article on Weinstein, which birthed the Me Too movement, but I fail to see the chain of dominos here (plus bad indentation)
- Chris Brown's infamous incident involving Rihanna started the domino effect of the many other incidents he would have in the future.Flat "What"? no, seriously, Chris Brown is still out there selling records, doing shows and what not. Yes, he's an abusive POS, but I don't see the trope anywhere in here
Nen_desharu
Nintendo Fanatic Extraordinaire
from Greater Smash Bros. Universe or Toronto
Since: Aug, 2020
Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Nintendo Fanatic Extraordinaire
#17: May 16th 2022 at 5:59:28 PM
Removed the non-example from Com Mons that used to link to Disaster Dominoes.
A surprising number of misused examples can be found by using these search terms on Google or another search engine: "Fox Kids" "Disaster Dominoes" site:tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php
Edited by Nen_desharu on May 16th 2022 at 9:03:03 AM
Kirby is awesome.
laserviking42
from End-World
Since: Oct, 2015
Relationship Status: You're a beautiful woman, probably
#18: May 16th 2022 at 6:03:58 PM
As I said above, I cut the Fox Kids wick when I cut the Fox entry.
Also:
Economic
- The Bronze Age Collapse is purported to have been this by the "general systems collapse" theory. To start with, climate change resulted in earthquakes and widespread famine across the region, leading to depopulation of key cities. These in turn led to civil unrest and peasants overthrowing their ruling classes. These events resulted in massive disruption of international trade, weakening every state involved and leaving them ripe for the Sea People invasions. Not only did these crises loop into each other, but magnified the resulting devastation. Surprisingly, this actually sounds like an example, and it's concise too, which is nice
- The current economic woe is an excellent example of disaster dominoes. It begins with a typical bankers' scheme, which fails and drags the economy with it, which force the governments to bail said bankers, in which taxpayer's money is spent for the bailing, in turn causing the governments to adopt a more austere financial policy, which then makes said taxpayers unable to right the course of the economy because no business can be done...Examples are not recent, also the causal chain is ... incorrect
- Which then joins another set of dominoes in the form of: climate chaos, which causes crop failure, which causes food riot, which causes social destabilization... Real Life is sometimes more exciting than fiction.unfortunate, but coincidental
- Brazil in turn had climate chaos, leading to a heatwave, a massive drought (the rain couldn't reach the hot area — which concentrates most of the population), and energetic shortcomings (hydroelectricity is the major provider) concurrent to their economic woes in 2014-15.same as above
- The Reddit/GameStop stock surge in January of 2021 was the end result of a small chain of events. A hedge fund was "short selling" stocknote in the company GameStop, hoping to cash in on the company's decreasing profits. However, people on Reddit took notice of this due to the r/WallStreetBets subreddit, and noticed that it was happening so badly that there were more shares being borrowed than the company had even issued. To counter this, a whole bunch of small investors started buying shares in the company and then keeping them, raising the prices of the shares significantly. In response, the hedge fund investors tried another round of short selling in an attempt to lower the price, but all that did was enrage the Redditors even more, who then bought shares in the company en masse. By the time the surge started slowing down, GameStop's stock was up around 1,700% than it was at the beginning of the month, and the multibillion dollar hedge fund Melvin Capital was on the verge of complete insolvency.some reddit users took on a hedge fund, no real disasters involved here
Edited by laserviking42 on May 16th 2022 at 9:12:32 AM
I didn't choose the troping life, the troping life chose me
Nen_desharu
Nintendo Fanatic Extraordinaire
from Greater Smash Bros. Universe or Toronto
Since: Aug, 2020
Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Nintendo Fanatic Extraordinaire
#19: May 16th 2022 at 6:27:32 PM
Thanks for the clarification.
BoltDMC
Since: May, 2020
#20: May 16th 2022 at 7:03:25 PM
Just deleted the Economic, Technology, and Other folders, citing this cleanup thread.
BoltDMC
Since: May, 2020
#21: May 16th 2022 at 7:06:15 PM
Just cut the Celebrities folder.
BoltDMC
Since: May, 2020
#22: May 16th 2022 at 7:07:50 PM
Any objections to cutting the Politics and Software folders? I posted above about them. Let me know.
Edited by BoltDMC on May 16th 2022 at 7:09:10 AM
Albert3105
Since: Jun, 2013
#23: May 16th 2022 at 7:48:57 PM
Can you copy the folders into this thread for review?
I was thinking of rewriting the Aeroflot + British Airways examples, but have to see if they qualified first. Are these chains of disasters?
- Aeroflot Flight 593:
- Kid seizes control of aircraft (disaster 1)
- Kid who seized plane stalls plane by rolling it over, making it fall out of the sky (disaster 2)
- Co-pilot overcorrects kid's stall, killing everyone. (disaster 3)
- British Airways Flight 5390:
- Windscreen fell out (disaster 1)
- Captain partially falls out of cockpit due to the broken windscreen (disaster 2)
- Captain gets stuck on controls as he falls out of cockpit (disaster 3)
Edited by Albert3105 on May 16th 2022 at 10:54:49 AM
laserviking42
from End-World
Since: Oct, 2015
Relationship Status: You're a beautiful woman, probably
#24: May 16th 2022 at 8:12:09 PM
Maybe the British Airways one, but the Aeroflot one ... points one and two are the same thing. Which is one of the issues I'm seeing with all these entries, is that while there is a confluence of errors, in many cases people are spelling out the minutae that is obviously copied over from WP (the Tenerife example I cut was the WP article just in bullet form).
Also, in the economic folder, I called the Bronze Age Collapse as most likely an example, but the rest were the usual shoehorns.
I do want to be careful and not just cut the entire page, since there are a few examples that can go back on the main page.
I didn't choose the troping life, the troping life chose me
laserviking42
from End-World
Since: Oct, 2015
Relationship Status: You're a beautiful woman, probably
#25: May 16th 2022 at 8:30:27 PM
I didn't choose the troping life, the troping life chose me
Having said that, let's look at the next folder (tldr, the Chernobyl one can probably be kept, with serious trimming):
Environmental
- In real-life engineering, this is called an "error chain", "failure chain", or "disaster chain". One of the key considerations in design of high-importance safety systems (such as those in nuclear reactors) is breaking the chain.General example, cut
- The Chernobyl disaster is the sort of thing that happens when you don't break the chain.duplicated below, cut
- Seemingly the Bhopal disaster was the result of this, too. So was Apollo 13. It could even be said that the Love Canal disaster was a long-winded version of this.I'm sure it's possible to be even more vague and general, but let's cut it anyways
- This happens even in their studies. Sure, it can happen in regular mathematics as well, but when you take up engineering and move to modelling actual events and objects, that's when you can clearly see how a tiny mistake near the start will chain into others and create something 100% detached from reality by the time you've finished. What's technically just one small mistake can completely wreck your entire answer, which does a good job of making the lesson stick.more general examples
- The 2010 saga of the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico. To hit the highlights:well, let's see
- The blowout causes an explosion and fire on the rig which cannot be put out before the rig sinks;the blowout and subsequent oil leak are the same disaster
- The blowout preventer, specifically meant to stop this sort of thing from causing the well to release oil uncontrollably, fails because of a dead battery;this was the cause of the above, just a simple cause and effect
- Everyone suddenly realizes they have no freaking idea how to deal with a blowout in over a mile of water, nor do they know what the released oil will do at that depth;bad training, but not disaster caused by the previous disaster
- The plan for dealing with a spill is ridiculously out of date, to the point where one of the experts supposed to be called in to assist was dead for 4 years... before the plan was filed;again, very bad planning that contributed, but not part of the cause and effect as this happened years ago
- To make matters worse, the plan turns out to have originally been written to deal with Arctic oil spills, and never adjusted for the different conditions in the Gulf of Mexico. It has more to say about how to protect walruses from the leakage than sea turtles.and we're still on the plan for some reason, stretching this entry out
- And just to put the icing on the cake, it appears that the well suffering the blowout would have been one of the most productive in the Gulf of Mexico, meaning that the volume of oil escaping is freaking huge.not really a disaster that caused another
- Last, oil is a very valuable resource. All that oil is completely wasted and the reservoir is unlikely to be tapped again in the near future.nothing to do with anything, we're just stretching the entry out needlessly
- A more recent revelation is that Halliburton supplied concrete to BP, as well as some simulations regarding the effectiveness of each design choice, and subsequently deleted both for fear of litigation in the wake of the explosion. They're currently slated to plead guilty to one count of "Computer Fraud" for having employees delete the aforementioned computer models, for which they'll pay a fine... to the tune of $200,000, the maximum fine available for that particular crime. Unsurprisingly, there's been some backlash.more nattery goodness
- The Chernobyl disaster:with SERIOUS TRIMMING
- When the plant was built, the process was a bit rushed, and proper materials weren't all available. (For example, using bitumennote in the roof.)we don't need this much detail
- There were other problems with the RBMK design, including several positive feedback loops (a "positive void coefficient" meaning water turning to steam due to increasing reactivity would further increase reactivity and more water turning to steam) as well as a transient power spike that had been observed during previous shutdowns. While the feedback loops were widely known, the power spike issue was not.someone is showing off their knowledge here
- The RBMK design was chosen by the Soviet Union because its reactors needed to be able to run on low quality fuel and require no large prefabricated components or specially trained construction crews.still no chain
- A safety test was scheduled to coincide with a routine maintenance shutdown of the reactor. The test involved cutting power to the coolant pumps and seeing if their inertia would be sufficient to keep the reactor cooled until the backup diesel generators started up. Several previous tests had failed, and a success was deemed important, even though the scenario of a complete power failure was unlikely.not a disaster
- As the experienced day crew were preparing the shutdown and reducing the power output, another power plant in Kyiv went offline. The grid controller in Kyiv requested that any further power reduction at Chernobyl be postponed. The Chernobyl plant director agreed and postponed the test and the shutdown.not a disaster
- It wasn't until 9 hours later that the Kyiv grid controller allowed the reactor shutdown to resume. However, operating the reactor at low power for so long resulted in a "xenon poisoning" situation: reaction byproducts that have a slowing effect on the reaction were not being burned away and slowly accumulated, dragging the power further down. However, the director decided to proceed with the test anyway.not a disaster yet
- Instead of letting the xenon poisoning solve itself and waiting for the more experienced next day-shift, it was decided to assign the test to the (less experienced and prepared) night shift, thinking "What Could Possibly Go Wrong?".starting to get to the disaster
- The test required a minimum power output, but due to the xenon poisoning, it was nowhere near that. The night crew, becoming anxious as the power level continued to drop, began removing (far) (too) many control rods to counteract the issue, to the point of removing all of them. The reactor was only being held down by the massive amount of xenon at this point.kind of repeating the above point
- Various limiters and alarms had been disabled to get the reactor into this state.
- As the coolant pumps were disconnected, the coolant flow to the reactor slowed, resulting in more steam, starting a positive feedback loop that caused the reaction to accelerate. The xenon poisoning, which, again, was the only thing holding the otherwise wide open reactor in check, began burning off, and the power level began rising... and rising... and rising...if we keep the example, we start here
- At this point, the crew's reaction went from anxiety to full-blown panic, and their reaction was to hit the emergency shutdown (SCRAM) button at which point a glaring, and ultimately disastrous, flaw was revealed in the reactor design: Because water in an RBMK reactor slows the reaction, the lower half of the control rods was made out of graphitenote to fill the void when the rods are pulled out, which had been known to cause sudden power spikes in the reactor when the control rods were inserted during normal operations. Hitting the SCRAM moved all the rods down, at once, displacing the water at the bottom and causing an unchecked power excursion at the bottom of the reactor. This issue was only discovered in operation and was not considered important, because surely no one would pull out almost all the rods and then put them all back in at once!note we're not wikipedia, there is no need for this level of detail, if we keep, shorten it tremendously
- At this point, removing the rods would cause the chain reaction to accelerate further, but the graphite and positive void coefficient meant the SCRAM sequence would do the same thing. Eventually, things hit their breaking point: The astronomical amount of heat caused the control rod channels in the reactor to shatter, jamming and locking the mechanisms in place. Now, there was no way to prevent the events which would happen next.more pointless detail
- Interestingly enough, what exactly happened at the moment of explosion is unknown, since anyone in the reactor hall itself did not survive to give their observations, and the control room's measurement gear had failed due to the extreme amount of heat and energy coming from the soon-to-explode reactor, so the only possible chain of events is only theorized by mathematics and hypothesis: Eventually, the fuel cladding protecting the coolant lines from the heat failed, and the partially-molten fuel elements released directly into the coolant. As a result, the coolant immediately flash-vaporized, resulting in the initial explosion which compromised the reactor casing.some pointless speculation
- The resulting pressure literally blew the lid off the reactor, which did not have a containment vessel, through the roof of the facility, exposing the contents. The second explosion, which was the more powerful one, is hypothesized to have been caused by hydrogen, which had been formed as a result of chemical reactions between the steam and the red-hot graphite. While the two explosions did have the (somewhat) positive effect of scattering the nuclear fuel and termiating the nuclear reactions, suffice to say there were... multiple other problems to be dealt with now.again, too much detail
- The graphite moderators caught fire, sending more radiation into the atmosphere.entries need to be this succinct
- Several members of senior management chose to invest more effort in deflecting the blame and/or reassuring the general public that everything was fine (which it really, really wasn't) than in trying to actually clean up the mess, delaying the evacuation of the area around the plant for several days.mostly fine
- The March 2011 disaster in Japan could be disaster dominoes within disaster dominoes. First you have the most powerful earthquake in the country's history, which triggers a huge tsunami, which damages the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, and then things at the plant get progressively worse and worse and worse. And the number of deaths directly due to the Fukushima disaster? Zero. Pretty good engineering there. The amount of radiation that was released will likely spike the cancer and other illness rates for years to come, with no direct link to the disaster provable. It's nowhere near the scope of Chernobyl, but, like all nuclear accidents, it's proper to say that not only can we not yet say that the dominoes have stopped, but indeed we may never even know if they'll ever stop or even how many were knocked down.as written, it both is and is not an example ... cut
- This trope is what led to the Flint, Michigan water crisis. In 2013, in an attempt to save money in water treatment fees, Flint water treatment responsibilities would be handed from Detroit to Flint itself, and while a new system was built that would take water from Lake Michigan, in 2014 an interim system was made to take water from the Flint River. Although a system of lead pipes serviced Flint, lead contamination was kept in check by adding a chemical that prevented corrosion and to prevent microbial contamination, chlorine compounds would also be added to help kill harmful bacteria. Likely as a cost-cutting measure, the anti-corrosion chemical was not added to the interim system, the pipes corroded and dangerous amounts of lead was unleashed onto the water supply. The chlorine that was added to the Flint water reacted with the unprotected pipes, further speeding up the corrosion and release of lead into the water. Without the anti-corrosion chemicals, the chlorine compounds reacted with the metal pipes, rendering them useless for killing bacteria, which led to an increase of waterborne disease. By then time the authorities finally took action in 2015, 12 people died and dozens more were sickened by waterborne illness, thousands of homes were contaminated with water that could legally qualify as toxic waste, and what was supposed to be a cost-cutting infrastructure measure became an expensive cleanup operation.as I read this, the lack of anti-corrosion chemicals led to bad water ... we're missing the entire chain
Total posts: 47
This is a thread to clean up the various entries within DisasterDominoes.Real Life per discussion in the Real Life section maintenance thread within the Long Term Projects cleanup forum: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13350380440A15238800&page=458#comment-11437
Much of the stuff on that page belongs in The Other Wiki, not here.
Edited by Nen_desharu on May 15th 2022 at 7:48:51 AM
Kirby is awesome.