Exam 8: Violent Death: Murder, Terrorism, Genocide, Disaster, and Accident

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Some of the most devastating accidents have been primed by human error, indifference, or greed. In these instances, it is more accurate to speak of the lethal episode not as an accident but as a probable outcome.
Example 1. Human Error: On April 27, 1865 the steamship Sultana started its voyage north from Vicksburg. Almost all the passengers were Union soldiers, including hundreds who had been incarcerated in prison camps under conditions of extreme stress and deprivation. They were all exhausted survivors of a long and bitter conflict, finally on their way home. Early the next morning, the steam boilers exploded, the ship splintered, and passengers and crew were hurled into the cold waters of the Mississippi River. Of the 2,200 people aboard, 1,700 died almost immediately, and another 200 died of exposure and injuries later. This was then, and still is, the largest loss of life on an American ship, the casualties exceeding even those of the Titanic.
Prevention: The Sultana was built to accommodate 376 people. About six times as many people were crowded aboard. Furthermore, there had been clear indications that the boilers were failing (Salecker, 1996). Greed and indifference to the safety of human lives had created a situation that markedly increased the probability of catastrophe. The tragic outcome is classified officially as an "accident," but this was far from an unpredictable event. The death toll was also increased by the fact that few of the passengers knew how to swim-largely because relatively few people in the United States at that time were proficient swimmers.
Example 2. Human Error: The nation in 1942 was shocked when a fire that erupted in Boston's Cocoanut Grove nightclub killed 492 people.
Prevention. The circumstances and practices that led to this tragedy were analyzed and condemned. Overcrowding and poor safety conditions were determined to be major causes. From this point on, it was vowed that fire safety in nightclubs and other gathering places would be much improved.
Example 3. Human Error: In 1977 almost the same circumstances were repeated and 165 people perished in a fire at the swank Beverly Hills Supper Club in Southgate, Kentucky.
Prevention: So stricken was the local community that to this day it has refused to allow any new building on the site except for a memorial cross (Kurtzman & Wartman, 2007). Safety inspectors today will routinely issue fine violations of the rules that have now been put in place to prevent the next fire.
Example 4. Human Error: The captain of an American Airlines jet that crashed in Colombia in 1996 entered an incorrect one-letter computer command that sent the plane into a mountain. The crash killed all but four of the 163 people aboard (Associated Press, August 24, 1996). The pilot had made a careless error. He thought he was entering the coordinates for Cali, the intended destination; but, on most South American aeronautical charts, the one-letter code for Cali is the same as the one for Bogata, which is located 132 miles in the opposite direction. The coordinates for Bogata directed the plane toward the mountain.
Prevention: The ambiguity and confusion in the communication system included the fact that most computer databases used different codes for Bogata and Cali. The lack of standardization among computer databases led the captain to make one fatal keystroke. For all the efficiency and potential of computerized processes, there is also the risk of fatal error. Improved awareness of the communication process and its hazards could sharply reduce the possibility of accidents in aviation and other transportation situations.