Original subtitles

[Narrator] Construction, heavy machinery,

tight schedules, millions at stake.

What could go wrong?

Everything.

Whether it's faulty equipment, poor design,

human error, or just bad luck,

these are Construction Fails.

In this episode...

poor platform performance.

These flops will give you stage fright.

Rooms askew,

some hotels check out...

before their guests.

[Driver] Wow, it's hot in my car, dude.

[Narrator] The barge did it.

How one bridge in China met its maker.

[Mission Control] We have boost to ignition and liftoff

of Space Shuttle Columbia.

[Narrator] Rocket science gone wrong.

How NASA's shuttle design failed its crews.

Runway to nowhere.

Is an airport an airport if it doesn't have airplanes?

[Mission Control] 10, 9, 8, 7...

We have a go for main engines start.

5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

We have boost to ignition and liftoff

of Space Shuttle Columbia

with a multitude of national and international

space research experiments.

[Narrator] On January 16, 2003,

the space shuttle Columbia launched

from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

[Mission Control] Columbia now rolling onto the proper azimuth

for a 39-degree inclination to orbit.

[Narrator] For 16 days, the seven-person international crew

conducted experiments.

[Astronaut] We've got about 80 major experiments

on board this flight.

We cover the life sciences, the earth sciences,

space science, and the physical sciences.

[Narrator] Everything went according to plan.

[Observer] The spacecraft is about 168 statute miles

above the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

[Narrator] On February 1st,

the crew prepared to return to Earth.

As the shuttle re-entered Earth's atmosphere,

the crew marveled at the view.

[Astronaut 1] This is amazing.

It's really getting, really bright out there.

[Astronaut 2] Yeah, you definitely don't want

to be outside now.

[Astronaut 3] Looks like a blast furnace.

[Narrator] But then the shuttle's instruments showed

a series of malfunctions.

Most alarming...

MMACS: We just lost tire pressure on

the left outboard and left inboard, both tires.

Mission Control: Columbia, Houston,

we see your tire pressure messages,

and we did not copy your last call.

Flight: Is it instrumentation, MMACS?

[radio chatter]

[Narrator] The tire pressure sensors in the landing gear

stopped working.

In Mission Control, it was apparent

things were going horribly wrong.

Then they lost contact with Columbia.

Mission Control: Columbia Houston comm check.

Columbia Houston UHF comm check.

[Narrator] None of the controllers and technicians

knew what had happened.

But outside, crowds of people looked up

and saw what looked like a daytime meteor shower.

Columbia had disintegrated.

Its pieces were burning up.

All seven crewmembers were killed.

And NASA's space shuttle program was forever tarnished.

So, what went wrong?

The Columbia was not NASA's first shuttle failure.

In 1986, the Challenger exploded

shortly after liftoff.

All seven crewmembers were killed.

It was a national tragedy

and a body blow to NASA.

The official report on the Challenger disaster

exposed flaws in the shuttle's design

and in NASA's decision-making process.

The shuttle design allowed little room for error,

especially regarding temperature.

Engineers warned NASA against launching in cold conditions.

The warnings were missed.

NASA launched Challenger.

A specialized seal called an O-ring failed

because it was too cold.

But NASA regrouped.

In the 17 years after Challenger,

there had been 87 successful shuttle missions.

Columbia was 107,

until January 16, 2003.

[Mission Control] 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

We have boost to ignition and liftoff

of Space Shuttle Columbia.

[Narrator] The Columbia was the pride of the fleet.

It was first into space.

In 24 years of service, it had flown 28 missions.

It had over 123 million miles on its odometer.

In total it logged 300 cumulative days

beyond our atmosphere.

It was tried and tested.

There was no reason for Columbia

to behave any differently on this mission.

But for the second time in the program's history,

a shuttle experienced a catastrophic failure.

The investigation into the disaster was long and complex.

The debris from the breakup was spread across

more than 2,000 square miles of Texas and Louisiana.

More than 82,000 pieces were collected and examined.

Investigators asked hard questions;

quations about NASA's organizational culture

and questions about the shuttle's design.

It's important to remember that the space shuttle

was a radical departure from previous spacecraft.

It was designed not only to return to Earth,

but to fly again and again and again.

This meant the shuttle needed to be lifted

out of the Earth's atmosphere and gravity

on the back of an external rocket.

Once free of the Earth's atmosphere,

the shuttle traveled five miles a second.

eight times faster than a rifle bullet.

But all this speed becomes a limitation

when it's time to go home.

As the shuttle passes into the Earth's atmosphere,

friction generates temperatures up to 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

Columbia had returned to Earth 27 times before.

On its 28th mission, it didn't.

NASA needed to know what was different this time.

Investigators learned that Mission Control knew

something was wrong shortly after liftoff.

Approximately 82 seconds after launch,

a piece of insulating foam

from the external fuel tank broke off.

A suitcase-sized piece of foam struck the leading edge

of the shuttle's left wing.

People within NASA urged the agency to ask

the Department of Defense to use its orbital spy cameras

to assess possible damage on the wing.

But NASA declined.

They couldn't be certain the damage was severe enough

to jeopardize the mission.

After all, foam had been falling off

the external rockets since the first launch

back in 1981, Columbia's launch.

Experts within the agency considered different scenarios.

A hole would allow superheated gases into the wing

and potentially damage the landing gear.

But then again, maybe it wouldn't.

Meanwhile, far above the Earth, the Columbia crew

had no sense of the danger of their situation.

[Astronaut 1] This is amazing.

It's really getting really bright out there.

[Astronaut 2] Yeah, you definitely don't want

to be outside now.

[Narrator] On February 1st, the worst-case scenario came true.

[Mission Control] Columbia Houston comm check.

Columbia Houston UHF comm check.

[Narrator] In the aftermath of the Columbia disaster,

investigators recreated the foam strike in a laboratory,

smaller than a piece of carry-on luggage.

In one test the foam was fired at 500 miles per hour

at a shuttle wing.

The foam piece weighed only 1.6 pounds,

but it was enough to blow a hole in the wing.

Superheated atmospheric gases

penetrated Columbia's left wing, melting its structure

and causing the breakup of the shuttle.

The Columbia Accident Investigation Board

came to a grim conclusion.

In our view, the NASA organizational culture

had as much to do with this accident as the foam.

It suggested that NASA had a broken safety culture.

As for the shuttle's design flaws,

all previous spacecraft,

including the Saturn V,

were designed with the crew

on the top of the rocket.

In order to be reusable,

the shuttle rode on the back of an external rocket.

This increased the likelihood that the shuttle could be

damaged by any material coming off the booster.

NASA's own tests revealed

they had been applying the foam incorrectly.

Spray-gun application on some sections left gaps

between the foam that could expand in the heat of liftoff

and pop pieces off.

Both Challenger and Columbia were destroyed

because of failures on the external rocket booster.

The board called the shuttle

"a developmental vehicle that operates not in routine flight

but in the realm of dangerous exploration."

It turns out the space shuttle was a tragic failure

waiting to happen.

[Mission Control] Columbia Houston UHF comm check.

[Narrator] Sometimes it's not the faulty construction

of your house that poses a threat.

It's the seemingly harmless household appliances

lurking inside.

They clean and cook

and keep us cool,

all without a word of thanks.

[ding]

But those neglected machines,

overworked and underappreciated,

can sometimes develop a mind of their own.

And when they do, their very first thought is revenge.

[bang]

[child crying]

Somebody must be doing a load of BS.

Because it looks like their pants are on fire.

Wondering what a ceiling fan is doing outside,

where there's a distinct lack of actual ceiling?

That's what.

You've heard of curlers?

These are swirlers.

Better take smoothies off the menu for now.

Some appliances get bored of their sedentary day job

and want to get out for a little exercise.

This one's off to spin class.

This one also tried to wiggle out of working,

but it looks like it's been cornered.

Oh, no, that's fine, just leave the fridge there.

We'll just move the kitchen into the garage.

There's not much to do in a laundromat,

except stare at your phone

and watch the dryers go round and round.

But if one of those dryers gets really fired up,

because somebody ignored the "do not overload" sign,

well now, that's entertainment.

This kid thinks he's watching an action movie.

And when a plucky customer finally manages

to put that dryer fire out,

you've got to do your laundry all over again.

Because nobody wants to walk around

smelling like barbecued socks.

But at least you'll have a story to tell.

And an insurance claim for crispy corduroys.

[siren]

A trusted appliance can become like a member of the family.

[clatter]

[baby cries]

It can get very jealous when there's a new arrival.

Some appliances actually like children.

But this one's not his biggest fan.

[child cries]

While mom and dad eat their dinner,

this frustrated fan is starving for attention.

How about you stop staring at the TV for a change...

...and look at me?

This little guy's hopping mad.

And this one's off the wall.

This 3-in-1 machine comes with a wash/dry/burn cycle.

This one's also a multi-tasker.

It cleans the clothes

and washes the floor.

[laughs]

[Onlooker] Oh, [bleep], oh, [bleep].

Oh, there goes his clothes! Oh, [bleep]!

[Narrator] This washing machine reserves the right

to reject clothes it finds unfashionable.

[Man] [bleep] My clothes falling out.

[Narrator] And clearly, your style choices make it nauseous.

[laughter]

You said you wanted a blowout.

Ever hear the expression

"running around with your hair on fire?"

Continue to disrespect your appliances,

and do so at your own peril.

You'd better treat them with care and caution,

because one day, these rogue machines might just turn on,

and turn on you.

Hotels.

A home away from home.

It's more than just a room for the night.

It's a place for wining and dining.

The best hotels surpass expectations.

The worst ones fail unexpectedly.

On March 7, 2020, just after 7:00 pm,

The Xinjia Express Hotel in Quanzhou, China, collapsed.

29 people were killed.

42 were injured.

The last survivor was pulled from the wreckage

five days later.

So, what went wrong?

Hotels come in all shapes and sizes and prices.

But they are buildings like any other,

subject to the forces of nature.

Especially on the bank of a flooding river.

In June of 2020, in Liangshan, China,

flash flooding washed away the foundation of this hotel.

The guests were evacuated.

And then the hotel vanished.

Some hotels don't even get a chance to open.

[Driver] Wow, the new hotel burned down.

Wow, it's hot in my car, dude.

It is hot in my car, dude.

[Narrator] This building site in Ventura County, California,

was supposed to be a 122-room hotel.

Fire investigators believe the blaze started

on the third floor.

♪ ♪

Sometimes a hotel survives for centuries

only to fail suddenly.

This hotel in Krov, Germany,

was established in the 17th century.

In the 1980s, an extra floor was added to the structure.

In August of 2024, the extra floor dropped.

Two people were killed.

Several were injured.

According to local news sources,

the cause of the accident is still not clear.

Sometimes hotels are the victims of geography.

This hotel was in Taiwan,

one of the world's most active earthquake zones.

In 2018, a 6.4-magnitude quake toppled the building.

14 people were killed.

But geography may not have been the only cause.

Authorities were questioning

why the building was so badly damaged.

Prosecutors were looking for signs of shortcuts

in the construction.

Investigations are ongoing, but authorities suspect

unauthorized renovations were the root cause of this collapse

in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

The 10-story Dubrovnik Hotel fell on October 29, 2024.

The building dropped sideways onto an adjacent building,

slicing it in half.

Nine people were killed.

As for the Xinjia Express Hotel,

the failure was a long time coming.

The original building was constructed in 2012

with four stories.

Three stories were added in 2016.

Those stories were the hotel.

But the original building was designed for a maximum load

of 11.7 million pound-force.

An additional three stories placed extraordinary stress

on the stress columns.

So much stress, the columns were buckling.

Like this steel bar in this lab test.

Rather than evacuate the hotel,

the owner tried to fix the problem.

Workers started welding the stress columns.

This just made matters worse.

Rather than make the steel columns stronger,

the heat made them weaker.

According to Chinese authorities,

not only was the reconstruction and reinforcement illegal,

the original construction was illegal, too.

The report said the failure was a result of corruption.

Hotel failures can also occur within a hotel.

This hotel in Berlin had a giant saltwater aquarium

as the centerpiece of its atrium.

52 feet high, it was the largest cylindrical aquarium

in the world...

until it burst in December of 2022.

Over 260,000 gallons of water poured into the hotel

and out into the street

along with 1,500 tropical fish.

Hotels can fail in multiple ways.

Whatever the cause, the key is to check out before they do.

[Onlooker] Whoa!

[Narrator] China.

The shipping nation of the world.

Not only does China own more container ships

than any other country, it now builds more commercial ships

than all nations combined.

Huge rivers like the Yangtze and the Pearl

are plied by ships carrying billions of tons of cargo.

Those rivers are spanned by hundreds of bridges.

Not only does China build more commercial ships

than any other country,

China also builds more bridges than any other country.

More than 100 cross the Yangtze alone.

And one of the busiest districts in this busy region

is Guangzhou, on the delta of the Pearl River.

The Pearl has lots of bridges, too.

But early in the morning of February 22, 2024,

the Pearl had one bridge fewer.

At 5:30 am, a container ship hit support pillars

of the Lixinsha Bridge.

Three vehicles, including a small bus, fell into the ship.

Two other vehicles fell into the Pearl River.

Five people were killed.

The Lixinsha Bridge was the only land link

to Sanmin Island.

And the bridge collapse severed the island's water supply.

So, what went wrong?

China's shipping volume has increased,

as have incidents involving bridges and vessels

on these rivers.

According to one Chinese report,

between 1987 and 2017, there was one incident a year.

Between its completion in 1957 and 2008,

the Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge was struck nearly 100 times.

Certainly, the Pearl River region has had its share

of navigational failures.

In June of 2007, the Jiujiang Bridge collapsed

after being hit by a river freighter.

The impact led to the collapse of two bridge piers

and over 650 feet of the bridge deck.

Nine people were killed.

Recent heavy rainfall raised the water level,

and the higher, faster water

may have been a factor in the accident.

Independent research suggested the bridge's design

was partly to blame.

Its support columns were hollow.

In March of 2008,

the Jintang Bridge in Zhejiang Province was hit.

A vessel collided with part of the lower span

causing the collapse of a section of the road.

It fell onto the ship.

The crew took the wrong route under the bridge,

and ran out of headroom.

If they spotted the girders, it was too late.

The collapsed roadway killed four crewmembers.

It could have been worse.

The bridge was under construction

and not yet open to traffic.

In the Lixinsha incident,

the ship collided with a bridge support,

and then its bow swung around

and struck the adjacent support.

A large section of roadway collapsed into the ship.

Local authorities said the boat did not obey

navigational markers.

The ship's owner was detained.

At first, authorities thought the remaining sections

of the bridge were sound.

It was only 30 years old.

But further investigation revealed that large portions

would need to be replaced.

Ironically, the Lixinsha Bridge was supposed to have

new anti-collision protection added to its support columns.

Barriers like these,

installed on the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge

in August of 2023.

The Lixinsha Bridge was supposed to get its barriers

in 2022, but installation was postponed twice.

And then came February 22, 2024.

The Lixinsha Bridge did not look like this for long.

It was reopened in June of 2024,

four months after the incident.

One final irony: the style of container barge

that caused this destruction

is sometimes used in bridge construction.

[Narrator] June 16, 2012, in Toronto's Downsview Park,

a concert by the English band Radiohead

was scheduled to begin at 7:30 that night.

At approximately 4:00 pm,

the stage's metal scaffold roof collapsed.

Without warning, tons of steel scaffolding

and lighting equipment fell to the stage floor.

A drum technician who was working on the stage

was crushed to death.

Three others were injured.

The concert was cancelled.

35,000 fans were sent home asking the same question,

what went wrong?

Stages.

Elevated platforms that improve a point of view.

As long as the sight lines are good,

we never give them a second thought.

Some stages are permanent.

They are built to last.

But many stages are transient.

Out of doors.

Here today.

Gone tomorrow.

They're built to be unbuilt.

Political rallies.

Fashion shows.

Rock concerts.

All stages are structures under pressure.

When a large number of people comes together in one place,

they place an enormous burden on the stage.

Like this choir performing in July of 2015 in Sichuan, China.

Luckily, no one was injured.

The same thing happened at a political rally

in Dewas, India, in November of 2018.

Amazingly, injuries were minor.

Sometimes just part of the stage collapses.

This was another political rally in India

in January of 2024.

Other times, the stage is out of doors

and subject to the elements.

[shouting]

A strong wind was blowing on December 17, 2017,

at this music festival near Porto Alegre in Brazil.

The wind was so strong, it blew down the overhead scaffolding.

One man was killed and at least three were injured.

Another music festival on another continent.

This one was in Lagos, Nigeria, in December of 2024.

The stage was set for the Native Land Music Festival,

but the stage had different ideas.

2024 was a bad year for stage collapses

at music festivals in Thailand.

In November, in Khon Kaen, five people were injured

when a gust of wind knocked over a massive speaker stand.

One month before that,

this concert was cancelled when the wind started howling

in the Thai city of Nakhon Phanom.

Concert organizers may have blamed the monsoon season

for ruining their event.

Although presumably the monsoon season is predictable.

Another concert in Thailand was pummeled by a massive storm.

[crashing]

This one was not during the monsoon season,

so they had to find another excuse.

Sometimes stuff gets blown down as it's going up,

like at this festival in Thailand in February of 2022.

All these temporary structures share a common virtue.

They can be put up and taken down quickly.

But sometimes that virtue can be a vice.

The Downsview incident was a different order of fail.

After a years-long inquiry, investigators determined

the top chord of the trusses had been crushed.

The stage roof grid was not strong enough

to bear the load of lights, screens and speakers;

a combined weight of over 38 tons.

Forensic engineers discovered

the truss was overwhelmed by the weight.

A load-bearing truss was supposed to have chords

three inches in diameter, but the truss that was used

had a top chord only two inches in diameter.

That much weight should never have been applied

to this particular structure...

ever.

Yet it had been used more than 30 times

before without incident.

Riggers assumed that one-inch discrepancy

between the plans and the structure

was a typographical error.

In the Downsview case, the problem wasn't too many humans

or too much wind.

[crashing]

The temporary nature of these stage systems

lends itself to accidents.

When something gets taken apart and put back together

again and again and again,

sometimes something goes astray.

In the Downsview incident,

because the event took place on federal land,

there was no requirement for a building permit;

a form of third party oversight.

Or perhaps the builders

don't put the pieces together properly.

It worked last time. Why wouldn't it work this time?

After 30 years, this stage finally collapsed

because humans failed to pay attention.

[Narrator] Shanghai.

Once one of China's fastest growing cities.

At the turn of the 21st century,

the city's population was a little over 16 million.

Nine years later, in 2009,

the population was nearly 20 million.

All those new people created demand for new buildings.

And the city's density required those buildings to be tall.

In 10 years, the city saw the construction

of nearly 15,000 buildings over 11 stories.

Among the many tower projects,

one of the ambitious builds was the Lotus Riverside.

11 towers, each 13 stories high.

But on June 27th of 2009,

there were only 10 towers.

Tower seven dropped on its face.

Its concrete piles were snapped.

Three workers inside the building managed to escape.

But one worker was killed.

So, what went wrong?

Buildings collapse for many reasons.

Sometimes we push them over.

Sometimes they drop by themselves.

One crack at a time.

Sometimes they drop by themselves,

and then think better of it.

Sometimes they just go sideways...

...with a little help from a gas explosion.

But tower seven didn't collapse.

It fell over almost intact.

At least the part of the structure you could see

appeared intact.

The failure was underneath.

Lotus Riverside tower seven

was standing on 118 piles.

Each pile was 108 feet long and made of

hollow-core prestressed high-strength concrete.

16 inches in diameter, with a three-inch wall thickness.

As tower seven was nearing completion,

builders had begun excavation

for an underground parking garage

to the south of the building.

At first, investigators blamed the garage excavation.

It was thought that removing soil

from the front of the building had weakened the ground

and caused the collapse.

But then suspicion moved from the hole in the earth

to the earth from the hole.

As soil was removed for the garage,

it was relocated to a soil stockpile

on the north side of the building.

As this giant mound grew,

so did the force against the north side of the tower.

In the early morning of June 27th,

there was five hours of intense rain.

The soil stockpile was 32 feet high, and it was saturated.

Saturated soil behaves like a liquid.

And like liquid, it will flow from high to low.

But the critical issue was the original soil stockpile

from previous excavations.

It had been there for six months.

It had time to settle and compact.

So, it provided a slope

for the newer, unsettled soil to slide on.

The liquefied soil dove under the building,

causing that part of the building to heave upward

more than six feet.

The massive kinetic energy of the soil from the north

pushed tower seven past its tipping point.

[boom]

At least that's the theory.

There is no definitive explanation.

But one thing is certain.

The building dropped like a plank.

[boom]

Project supervisors had warned the developers

about the risks of the soil mound.

But those warnings were ignored.

The developers were accused of putting profit before safety.

One person lost his life.

And investors lost their money.

The two executives in charge lost their freedom.

They were both given life sentences.

The remaining 10 Lotus Riverside towers

are still standing.

[Narrator] Airports.

Billions of passengers.

Millions of flights.

LAX.

Heathrow.

Charles de Gaulle.

These are the airports of the many.

But there is another kind of airport.

The airports for the few.

Consider St. Helena.

St. Helena is one of the most remote inhabited islands

in the world.

A British Overseas Territory,

the volcanic outcrop is 1,200 miles from Africa

and 2,500 miles from South America.

Which is why the British exiled Napoleon Bonaparte there.

Since its first governor arrived in 1659,

the only way of reaching St. Helena was by ship.

But in 2005, the United Kingdom decided to build an airport

to service the population of fewer than 6,000 people.

With less than 50 square miles of rugged terrain,

there was no area wide enough, or flat enough

for a 6,400-foot runway.

So, the constructors filled a mountain gorge

with 8.3 million cubic yards of blasted rock

and built the runway on that.

$360 million later, in 2016,

the isolated island was ready for arrivals.

But was it?

It turns out St. Helena Airport

is subject to severe wind shear.

As a result, pilots landing at the airport

need to have special training.

That limited the number of airlines

who might want to fly to the island.

The problems started building from there.

So, what went wrong?

Construction fails are often obvious.

When things go wrong, it's typically followed

by a giant smashing sound.

But some fails are silent,

like the Spruce Goose

and the Ford Edsel.

People just keep away.

And when millions of people keep away...

[elephant trumpets]

Take the sad story of Mirabel,

the gold standard of airport white elephants.

In the early 1970s, Montreal was Canada's biggest city.

A new airport was constructed to relieve congestion

at Montreal's primary facility.

But Mirabel was built too far

from the city it was intended to serve.

Passengers transiting between airports

hated the 50-minute commute, and airlines gave up on it.

Or take Ciudad Real, an airport in Spain.

It was built to relieve congestion at Madrid-Barajas,

one of Europe's busiest.

Ciudad Real opened in 2008,

at a cost pegged at $1.4 billion.

But Ciudad Real was even

further afield than Mirabel,

more than two hours by road

south of Madrid.

In the middle of an arid, sparsely populated region,

the state-of-the-art facility was designed to handle

2.5 million passengers a year.

But barely 100,000 passengers passed through the airport

in the three years of its operation.

In its last year, fewer than one flight a day

touched down on its runway.

Ciudad Real failed to thrive.

In April 2012, the airport closed for good.

Which brings us back

to the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean.

St. Helena's runway is short

by the standards of commercial aviation.

So, this limits the size of the aircraft that can land there.

The limits seem unlimited.

That part of the South Atlantic Ocean leaves pilots

few options for alternative landing sites.

No other aircraft can be in flight

in St. Helena's airspace until an arriving plane has landed.

So, the airport is limited

to a maximum of two aircraft per day.

But at present, it's typically one or two a week.

Small wonder the British press refers to it

as the world's most useless airport.

But at least passenger planes

are landing at and taking off from St. Helena.

Not so at Mirabel.

Mirabel's survival depended on its position

as a refueling center for aircraft bound for destinations

deeper into the Americas.

But that role disappeared

as longer-range aircraft came into use.

In 2004, Mirabel's passenger terminal was closed for good.

In 2016, it was demolished.

Today, there is a go-kart track

on the apron of the former terminal.

What's left functions as a hub for cargo planes.

But at least Mirabel has functioning aircraft.

As for Ciudad Real,

the last time it had any significant aircraft activity

was during the COVID lockdown,

when it was used to park commercial airliners

sidelined by the pandemic.

For now, the fastest route from Ciudad Real to Madrid

is the train.