Our hearts sank when we heard of the fire at the venerable Notre Dame Cathedral. The collapsing roof threatened to destroy the whole edifice. In 2007 a 1900-foot bridge collapsed in Minneapolis. Each week, we will analyze disasters, their causes and the aftermath to examine how such a disaster could or was prevented in the future. The case study can come from any aspect of life from the recent Los Angeles fires to the Challenger spacecraft or many aircraft and ship disasters. Each topic should cover the initial disaster background including the design phase of the product, unforeseen circumstances that contributed to the disaster, human error and judgment that impacted the disaster and how we learned from the disaster and prevented it in the future Other possible topics include the Titanic, the Concorde crash, the Space Shuttle accidents, Apollo 1 and 13 or Three Mile Island.
