On Monday, we covered the Daylight Savings Time switch and reiterated the importance of having correct, up-to-date data with which to make your IT decisions. Carol Shiraldi has compiled a short list of engineering disasters that occurred because of bad data.

By Carol Shiraldi

Bad Data: Necessary Height of Bulkheads

The RMS Titanic struck an iceberg on April 14th, 1912 and sank 2 hours 40 minutes later resulting in the loss of 1523 lives. The boat was marketable as "unsinkable" because the ship had been sub divided into 16 watertight compartments by 15 transverse bulkheads. The front six compartments were damaged and flooded, which should not have resulted in the sinking of the ship, except that the height of the bulkheads - three meters, taller than any ship previously built - was not sufficient to prevent water from coming over the sixth bulkhead, causing the ship to sink. After the Titanic sank, the height of bulkheads on other ships was extended even further. The lack of lifeboats contributed substantially to the loss of life, but it was this initial miscalculation that caused the ship to take on water and sink in the first place.

Bad Data: Wind Loads

On December 28th, 1879, the Tay Rail Bridge in Scotland collapsed when a train was crossing the bridge in a gale force wind. The design team for the bridge had massively underestimated wind loads, and the bridge components were over stressed leading to catastrophic failures. The bridge was rebuilt to a similar design with upgraded specifications, accounting for the wind load, and still stands today.

Bad Data: Construction Design

On July 17th, 1981 between 1500 and 2000 people gathered at the Hyatt Hotel in Kansas City to attend a dance. At 7:05, there was a loud crack and the second and fourth floor walkways crashed to the ground. It was the worst structural failure in the history of the United States. The failure was caused because, unknown to the hotel, the contractor did not build what was specified, creating an overload in the attachments and bolts of the structure.

These, of course, are just examples from the fields of engineering. If you look outside of that field, there are many more.

Carol Schiraldi is a Senior Software Engineer at NetQoS.

We invite you to share your own "bad data" stories - in IT or in other areas - through our comments section.