Episode Details
Back to Episodes
Can you recommend an Engineering Disaster podcast?
Description
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.