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The Disaster That Changed Engineering: The Hyatt Regency Collapse
Tom Scott
A Tom Scott guest video by Grady Hillhouse of Practical Engineering on the 1981 Hyatt Regency walkway collapse. A seemingly minor change to the support design led to catastrophic failure, which is why the case is taught as a lesson to check and double-check everything.
HN cites it as the standard case study of how a small unchecked design change causes disaster, and of why engineering process and bureaucracy exist.
5 Hacker News mentions · 2017–2021