• From capsizing a ship while trying to get laid to the reason why doors open outward,
we look 9 people who caused catastrophes for dumb reasons.
9 – Man causes highway pileup to save a cat,
• Well most of us can’t stand to see Mr. Mittens get turned into road kill but sometimes
it might be best to let nature take its course.
• That didn’t occur to Michael James Schneider who decided to pull over and run out onto
a Florida freeway to save an endangered feline.
But when your parents warned you not to play in traffic they really meant don’t try and
be a hero in traffic.
• Michael’s random running out onto a freeway caused a 5 mile traffic jam, multiple
car accidents, the death of a 75 year old driver and critical injuries to himself.
Oh and the cat died too.
8 – 300 people die because someone put hinges on the wrong way,
• Nightclubs are pretty horrible places, sticky floors, and terrible music and douche
bags around every corner but at least they have fire exits.
• But not in the 1940’s when a nightclub in Boston called the Cocoanut Grove caught
fire.
Now normally when something catches fire people panic and run for the doors but at Cocoanut
grove the hinges on the doors opened inwards meaning that 490 people were pushing on doors
they needed to pull.
• The pressure of the mob forced the doors to stay shut meaning everyone pretty much
burned to death.
Experts believe that if the hinges faced the opposite way at least 300 people would have
survived the blaze.
7 – Wildfire Started Because Arsonist was Worried Firefighters Were Bored,
• It’s good to do something nice for the people who put their lives on the line to
protect us, but I doubt burning down a forest classifies as “Nice”.
• Oregon woman Sadie Renee Johnson started a fire on the side of a road using a firework
before posting the resulting inferno to Facebook with the caption “Like my fire”.
While the fire started out small it eventually burned down 51,000 acres causing over $8 million
in damages.
• The Facebook brag eventually brought the police to Sadie’s home where she plead guilty
to arson.
When asked why she did it she said was concerned the firefighters were bored.
Next time just bake them a goddamn cake or something.
6 – Cruise ship capsizes because the captain wanted to impress his girlfriend,
• We all do stupid things to try and get laid but most of the time it doesn’t end
with the deaths of 32 people and you going to jail.
• The Italian cruise ship Costa Concordia made headlines around the globe when it capsized
in shallow waters that were not on the planned route.
Captain Schettino made the sudden course alteration to impress his new girlfriend with a “Sail-by
Salute”.
• Schettino ended up going to jail for being a dumb ass and killing his passengers for
trying to get a woman to go down on him…well something ended up going down.
5 – 100 people die because a band wanted to look cool,
• Oh man I got these killer fireworks that are just going to set the audience alight
guys, it’s gonna be so cool.
• At least that’s what must have gone through the head of the tour manager for metal
band Jack Russell’s Great White right before he burned down the nightclub they were rockin’
out in.
The pyrotechnic display ignited acoustic foam on the roof of the venue, setting it ablaze
and killing 100 people.
• Among the dead was the band’s guitarist Ty Longely which probably makes Daniel Biechele
the worst tour manager of all time.
Yes worse than the guy who organised the Altamont concert for the Rolling Stones.
4 – Man floods town to leave his wife, • With divorce so common these days you’d
think it would be easy but James R. Scott thought fuck going doing paperwork, I’ll
just flood the town.
• Removing some sandbags from the water levee near his home town of West Quincy, Scott
caused the Mississippi river to engulf the town and the only bridge in the area between
Missouri and Illinois.
• Scott was caught out when he confessed to a friend that he’d caused the great flood
of ’93 so that he could “have an affair, fish, and party” while his wife was stranded.
Well he ended up getting life in prison but at least he’s away from his wife.
3 – Space shuttle disintegrates because someone made a shitty PowerPoint presentation,
• Space exploration is serious stuff so you’d expect that NASA, an organisation
with some of the smartest people on the planet could use Microsoft PowerPoint properly.
• Many factors lead to the destruction of the space shuttle Columbia on re-entry but
one of the key reasons that direct problems were not addressed was because the damage
report PowerPoint on the shuttle had the wrong words in bold.
• This lead to the higher ups glancing over the key information of “there is a fucking
problem” because the inconsequential information had been made to look important.
Can put a man on the moon but can’t master Microsoft Office.
2 – Cruise ship sinks because someone didn't close the door,
• Man cruise ships just seem to be disasters waiting to happen.
If someone isn’t sinking the ship to get laid then they are doing it out of pure incompetence.
• In 1987 the Herald of Free Enterprise was making a routine trip from Belgium to
England when the doomed ship capsized because the door to the car hold had been left open.
Somebody who had the important job of making sure the giant fucking door was closed apparently
decided to go for a smoke or something.
• To make matters worse the bridge had no way of telling if the door was shut, short
of sending someone down to check.
So they would just assume that someone would have done their job.
1 – Plane crashes because someone installed futuristic gauges,
• You like cool sci-fi gauges right?
After all it is the 1980’s so the inside of your aeroplane should look like the godamn
bridge of the Enterprise.
• Turns out that changing time tested instrument gauges for ones that “look cool” is really
stupid idea, leading disaster for flight landing in Kegworth, England.
The plane experienced an engine failure on landing, so the pilots turned off the malfunctioning
engine hoping to land only using one.
Buuut the new confusing gauges caused the pilots to turn off the wrong engine.
• No prizes for guessing what happened next.
47 people died in the crash all because someone chose design aesthetics over practicality.