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The Disaster That Changed Engineering: The Hyatt Regency Collapse

Tom Scott · explainer · Watch on YouTube

Civil engineering & construction

What it is

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.

Why Hacker News recommends it

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.

  • 1 people recommended it
  • 1 different months
  • 0 strong recommendations
  • first 2017, last 2021

What HN commenters said

  1. “Grady from Practical Engineering has a great explainer of what went wrong”

    Practical Engineering explains what went wrong in the Hyatt collapse.

    dredmorbius, 2021-05 · Recommendation · in “The problem with reinforced concrete (2016)”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: hyatt regency, structural failure, engineering ethics, case study, practical engineering

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