Epic Engineering Failures and the Lessons They Teach

When a structure fails, the fallout can be frightening, disruptive, and even deadly. And yet, these disasters also teach us valuable lessons about the possibilities of engineering—and how to make our future projects safer. In the same way that a military defeat might provoke strategic changes and new approaches, engineering failures pave the way for improvement in the ways that we design, build, and maintain our technological systems. But first, we must figure out what went wrong.