“To err is human, but to really foul things up you need a computer.” –Paul Ehrlich
Software errors cost the U.S. economy $60 billion annually in rework, lost productivity and actual damages. We all know software bugs can be annoying, but faulty software can also be expensive, embarrassing, destructive and deadly. Following are 20 famous software “disasters” in chronological order:
1. Mariner Bugs Out (1962)
Cost: $18.5 million
Disaster: The Mariner 1 rocket with a space probe headed for Venus diverted from its intended flight path shortly after launch. Mission Control destroyed the rocket 293 seconds after liftoff.
Cause: A programmer incorrectly transcribed a handwritten formula into computer code, missing a single superscript bar. Without the smoothing function indicated by the bar, the software treated normal variations of velocity as if they were serious, causing faulty corrections that sent the rocket off course. (more)
2. Hartford Coliseum Collapse (1978)
Cost: $70 million, plus another $20 million damage to the local economy
Disaster: Just hours after thousands of fans had left the Hartford Coliseum, the steel-latticed roof collapsed under the weight of wet snow.
Cause: The programmer of the CAD software used to design the coliseum incorrectly assumed the steel roof supports would only face pure compression. But when one of the supports unexpectedly buckled from the snow, it set off a chain reaction that brought down the other roof sections like dominoes. (more)
3. CIA Gives the Soviets Gas (1982)
Cost: Millions of dollars, significant damage to Soviet economy
Disaster: Control software went haywire and produced intense pressure in the Trans-Siberian gas pipeline, resulting in the largest man-made non-nuclear explosion in Earth’s history.
Cause: CIA operatives allegedly planted a bug in a Canadian computer system purchased by the Soviets to control their gas pipelines. The purchase was part of a strategic Soviet plan to steal or covertly obtain sensitive U.S. technology. When the CIA discovered the purchase, they sabotaged the software so that it would pass Soviet inspection but fail in operation. (more)
4. World War III… Almost (1983)
Cost: Nearly all of humanity
Disaster: The Soviet early warning system falsely indicated the United States had launched five ballistic missiles. Fortunately the Soviet duty officer had a “funny feeling in my gut” and reasoned if the U.S. was really attacking they would launch more than five missiles, so he reported the apparent attack as a false alarm.
Cause: A bug in the Soviet software failed to filter out false missile detections caused by sunlight reflecting off cloud-tops. (more)
5. Medical Machine Kills (1985)
Cost: Three people dead, three people critically injured
Disaster: Canada’s Therac-25 radiation therapy machine malfunctioned and delivered lethal radiation doses to patients.
Cause: Because of a subtle bug called a race condition, a technician could accidentally configure Therac-25 so the electron beam would fire in high-power mode without the proper patient shielding. (more)
Wait, there’s more… Continue to Part 2
Article published on February 12, 2008
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February 12th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
20 Famous Software Disasters…
You’ve been kicked (a good thing) – Trackback from DotNetKicks.com…
February 12th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
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February 12th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
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February 13th, 2008 at 12:17 am
[…] 20 Famous Software Disasters : DevTopics (tags: history engineering) […]
February 13th, 2008 at 12:36 am
Thanks for the knowledge..Among 20 the most shocking is the Mariner Bugs Out and Hartford. It made me think a lot about computer programming and its defects. Anybody tell me of a good open source project that provides security over software piracy. Someone recommended the site “paragent.com”
Any suggestions or opinions about this would be great.
Thanks In advance,
Shaun
February 13th, 2008 at 12:44 am
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February 13th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
Oh, how I would _hate_ to be the programmer that made one of these mistakes. How heavy must it lie on their conscience — that is, of course, if the programmer knew that _they_ made the mistake.
It’s one thing to have a bug in a program, but when that program is used for situations where a bug could cause death, it’s a totally different matter.
That’s why I’d never write programs that would be used in such situations. Mistakes cannot be prevented from happening. :/
February 14th, 2008 at 8:47 am
[…] The title says it all. DevTopics has a list of the twenty most famous software disasters. […]
February 14th, 2008 at 10:32 am
please visit http://www.microsoft.com to check on more such disasters 😉
February 14th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
So how is the Hartford collapse considered a ‘software disaster’?
*Was there a flaw in the CAD software?
*Was the CAD software ‘running’ when the roof collapse?
*If it had been designed using traditional methods (pencil, ruler, compass and paper) would that make it a ‘drafter disaster’?
*Wasn’t the CAD ‘programmer'(??) actually the structural engineer who should have known better regardless of the technology used to capture his/her design?
This doesn’t meet the same criteria as the other examples. And yeah, I’m a thin-skinned programmer 😉
February 15th, 2008 at 4:27 am
[…] 20 Famous Software Disasters : DevTopics Check your pointers, people. Thanks, Arjan. (tags: history programming computers software) […]
February 16th, 2008 at 4:23 am
[…] قالت إحدى الإحصائيات أن الأخطاء البرمجية تكلف الاقتصاد الأمريكي 59 و نصف مليار دولار سنوياً، و بالطبع، الرقم أكبر مما نتوقعه، و ليس هذا الرقم هو فقط الخسائر، فكثير ما أدت الأخطاء البرمجية أو كادت تؤدي إلى موت البشر، و أبرز الحوادث التي كادت تؤدي إلى حرب عالمية ثالثة كانت في عام 1983 عندما أطلقت الأجهزة السوفيتية تحذيراً خطائياً بهجوم الولايات المتحدة على الاتحاد السوفييتي و كاد السوفييت يردون بهجوم صاروخي نووي كذلك، و قد شاهدت قبل أيام على الجزيرة الوثائيقة برنامجاً عن هذه الحادثة بالذات. السلسلة تطول، فهناك العشرات و العشرات من المشاكل المدمرة، و يمكنك قراءة عشرون من أكثرها شهرة على الرابط : عشرون كارثة برمجية شهيرة. […]
February 16th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
woagh nice post,progammer also human :D, every human can make a mistake 😀
February 20th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
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February 21st, 2008 at 4:50 pm
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February 27th, 2008 at 11:34 pm
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March 5th, 2008 at 9:46 am
alriteeee 😛
March 23rd, 2008 at 12:50 am
[…] 20 Famous Software Disasters, Part 2, 3 and 4 via DevTopics […]
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[…] in rework, lost productivity and actual damages. We all know software bugs can be annoying, but faulhttps://www.devtopics.com/20-famous-software-disasters/JAMA — Abstract: Five Years After To Err Is Human: What Have We …May 18, 2005 … To err Is human […]
November 9th, 2008 at 11:48 am
[…] impact of 20 famous software disasters ranges from lives lost and endangered to millions of dollars lost. Although the impact of failure […]
January 24th, 2009 at 12:14 am
Its scarcely world-famous, but we had a fun one with the Navy’s standard missile system in the 1970s, when we tested a “last ditch” defense mode against sea skimmer missiles. After a year of asking, we got permission to launch two war shots at a drone using the mode. We no sooner launched the missiles when the radars slewed to their stowed position and turned themselves off, thanks to a bug in the program for the then-new Mk 152 computers. Our two missiles, having lost all return signal, self-destructed. “Boom” goes a quarter million 1975 dollars. Our tech-reps looked a little bit harried for the rest of that trip….
March 7th, 2009 at 11:23 pm
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[…] relacionados con el software” traducción autorizada por Timm Martin de su serie “20 Famous Software Disasters”, que recogía un buen número de casos en los que fallos relacionados con el […]
January 23rd, 2010 at 9:03 am
[…] Bad code has killed people and cost billions of dollars. […]
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March 30th, 2010 at 4:57 pm
[…] nothing could be farther from the truth. Aside from the the aforementioned catastrophes (see more here) there’s the fact that your memory isn’t what you think it is. Your digital memory, […]
April 17th, 2010 at 6:45 pm
[…] is nothing but common sense- get users involved and do not overwork yourself because you will end up with rubbish anyway.) Or it involves someone digging into Academia and giving an obscure topic exposure […]
July 22nd, 2010 at 2:03 pm
[…] failed to filter out false missile detections caused by sunlight reflecting off cloud-tops. 20 Famous Software Disasters Sept. 26, 1983: The Man Who Saved the World by Doing … Nothing __________________ Tough guys […]
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[…] of something as triflingly simple as conversion between metric and standard measures. Similar examples are everywhere. We need software development to be built with an engineering discipline, because […]
September 25th, 2010 at 6:16 am
title says 20 but I got only 5. I think it’ll be great to have all list in one part instead of few parts. But it’s great info. I’ll going to use as a reference for my next science assignment.
October 1st, 2010 at 6:41 am
Programmers will always make mistakes and introduce bugs, there is nothing you can do about it. The project leader should always subject the outcome to rigorous testing to make sure it performs as expected, thats in my opinion where the responsibility lies.
October 4th, 2010 at 8:46 am
[…] start today’s class, for a bit of fun, review this list of 20 Famous Software Disasters. Some are caused by a confluence of entirely unexpected events — but some are caused by poor […]
October 12th, 2010 at 1:33 am
[…] and mental well-being is being lost due to issues in Software Engineering. Bugs can cause major disasters or put someone out of business. The more benign ones can cause millions of hours of lost time […]
December 6th, 2010 at 9:02 am
[…] site 20 desastres famosos de software você pode ver esses e outros desastres provocados por erros de software, ou melhor, erros dos […]
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January 5th, 2011 at 11:39 am
Very nice suggestions.
Thanks man
January 22nd, 2011 at 12:59 pm
title says 20 but I got only 5. I think it’ll be great to have all list in one part instead of few parts. But it’s great info. I’ll going to use as a reference for my next science assignment
January 27th, 2011 at 5:52 am
Programmers will always make mistakes and introduce bugs, there is nothing you can do about it. The project leader should always subject the outcome to rigorous testing to make sure it performs as expected, thats in my opinion where the responsibility lies.
February 8th, 2011 at 12:10 pm
site 20 desastres famosos de software você pode ver esses e outros desastres provocados por erros de software, ou melhor, erros dos
February 21st, 2011 at 5:12 am
Number three sounds like something the CIA would do. Thats one of those, what were they think? Umm they weren’t
April 2nd, 2011 at 2:01 am
altın çilek, you are right, but programmers need to grow up and accept their part in killing people.
Those who do not understand history are condemned to repeat it.
We are currently seeing companies race to create electronic health information systems with profoundly unqualified developers. In a domain where the data dictionary is a few hundred million rows, the reference information model has 25 classes, made from 75+ different data-types (not counting the huge range from collections, mix-ins, and template/generic types) you don’t want people emailing a standards organization for help with questions like:
“I just was asked to implement a [standard, very basic summary of a persons health history] CCD/C32—do I have to read all of the standard or can someone tell me what to do?” (Answer: no, hire someone who knows what they are doing and keep your hands in your pockets)
“What is Schematron” (Answer: http://www.google.com/search?q=schematron)
Wait until these developers start getting named as individuals in malpractice lawsuits as perpetrators of pain/suffering/loss of life/loss of family; and software engineers loose their house and cars….whoo…hoo…hoo, won’t that be a change. Malpractice insurance is probably pretty cheap now, better lock in a quote. They will even get your favorite undergrad CS professor in their testifying that you were already reckless and they warned you to be systematic, oh how they warned you. 😉
Welcome to healthcare. Start coding like you will get sued for every-time a mistake causes harm. Betcha double check those threads for deadlock and race awful carefully.
Writing some types of software is not a late-at-night hacking on your own. Sometimes sprinting between scrums leaves a hell of a lot of details, modeling, test-first work undone.
For critical systems (e.g. healthcare) formal code review, red-team testing, model drive development, internal validation, monitoring/logging every class, guarding every method, catching all exceptions, validating input before it is sent and after it is received need to be the normal day-to-day method for writing electronic health records systems, order entry systems, pharmacy systems, etc. etc. etc.
This isn’t a game. Although the industry desperately needs people with computer game design–nobody does better user interfaces than game designers. Hard to play = pink slip! Ha. Wish I could do that with my team.
April 24th, 2011 at 7:10 pm
[…] DevTopics: 20 Famous Software Disasters […]
April 28th, 2011 at 11:26 pm
[…] 20 Famous Software Disasters […]
May 3rd, 2011 at 12:06 pm
title says 20 but I got only 5. I think it’ll be great to have all list in one part instead of few parts. But it’s great info. I’ll going to use as a reference for my next science assignment
May 16th, 2011 at 8:42 am
Aside from the the aforementioned catastrophes (see more here) there’s the fact that your memory isn’t what you think it is. Your digital memory,
May 31st, 2011 at 7:18 am
[…] https://www.devtopics.com/20-famous-software-disasters/ […]
July 13th, 2011 at 5:34 am
Bug’s creation happens in software attributable to ignorance. Ignorance is often from developers or technical leads or managers or huge boss who is sitting within the prime of hierarchy.
July 14th, 2011 at 1:34 pm
cddBug’s creation happens in software attributable to ignorance. Ignorance is often from
October 26th, 2011 at 11:11 am
[…] 20 Famous Software Disasters […]
November 7th, 2011 at 5:24 pm
Number 4 is my favorite. Way too scary, glad someone was there to prevent automation from killing humanity…
March 11th, 2013 at 1:24 pm
[…] https://www.devtopics.com/20-famous-software-disasters Here you can get a feeling of what can be caused by a bug: […]
August 30th, 2013 at 1:20 pm
[…] Traduzido e adaptado de DevTopics. […]
December 19th, 2013 at 12:14 pm
[…] Source: here […]
December 19th, 2013 at 12:25 pm
[…] A programmer made a fatal error in the code of Mariner 1. The code was being transferred from a page where it was handwritten to the computer. The writer missed writing a superscript bar that made the software in the rocket think that minor variations of velocity were serious and sent the rocket off course. This failure in software caused a $18.5 million dollar failure. This information was accessed from this website. […]
August 26th, 2015 at 11:06 am
i agree with post 60 (Gen Tech). With this failure to program, the government lost millions of dollars in exploration.
October 29th, 2015 at 7:57 am
I think that the Mariner 1 rocket error was a logic error due to the fact that the program still compiled, but the program’s results were very different than what was intended.
May 12th, 2016 at 11:14 am
[…] 20 Famous Software Disasters […]
October 1st, 2016 at 4:01 am
[…] Mariner Bugs Out (1962) (source) […]