The Deepwater Horizon Explosion and Oil Spill
In 2008, the energy company BP received a permit to drill a subsurface oil well in the Gulf of Mexico called the Macondo well. For this project, BP chartered the 10-year-old rig Deepwater Horizon from its owner, Transocean. Halliburton was responsible for cementing work ...
The Baldwin Hills Dam Disaster
Constructed during and immediately after World War II, the Baldwin Hills Reservoir was intended to provide a reserve supply of safe water for people living in the Los Angeles area in case of emergency. The dam, built between 1947 and 1951 by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power ...
The Alexander Kielland Platform Sinking
On 27 March 1980, the offshore oil platform Alexander Kielland was, as a floating crew accommodation, supporting drilling operations by the Edda 2/C in the North Atlantic. There were 212 off-duty oil platform workers aboard that evening ...
The Piper Alpha Disaster
Located about 120 miles northeast of Aberdeen, Scotland, the Piper Oil Field was one of the first deepwater oil reservoirs to be exploited in the North Sea. The surprisingly productive oil field contributed significantly to the economy of the United Kingdom by ...
Collapse of the Willow Island Cooling Tower
In the 1970s, power companies began building many new coal-fired electrical power plants in the Ohio Valley to feed the growing industry in that region. These power plants were close to coal mines, so the electricity they generated was less expensive than nuclear or hydroelectric ...
Airplane Propeller-Induced Flutter
One night in September 1959, a Lockheed Electra L-188A turboprop aircraft with 28 passengers and 6 crew apparently disintegrated mid-flight over Buffalo, Texas. The Electra was new at the time, the first large turboprop airliner built by a United States aircraft company ...