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July 5th, 2009
June 29th, 2009
June 27th, 2009
June 22nd, 2009
z_gryphon
 | 11:25 pm - Metro train wreck in DC
Early reports indicate that one train was stopped when the other hit it. At this point at least six people are known to have been killed in the crash, and the mess is big and tangled enough that I wouldn't be surprised if that isn't the final tally. Upwards of 70 injuries being reported at the moment.
At the risk of seeming ghoulish - but then, we're always at least at risk of seeming ghoulish in this community, aren't we? - it will be interesting to see how the investigation into this deal unfolds, since at first blush it seems like a sort of accident we've seen before - a scenario modern railways are supposed to be prepared for already.
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June 11th, 2009
vivian_shaw
 | 02:51 pm
Disasterblog is updated: Lake Peigneur.
If the Air France disaster turns out to be another Aeroperu, one has to wonder if in fact anyone has learned anything from air disasters in the past few decades. Check your oxygen generators' safety caps, people.
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June 6th, 2009
z_gryphon
| 03:35 pm - [AF 447] Hmm.
News reports are now mentioning that ground telemetry from the Airbus was giving conflicting airspeed reports and possibly indicating instrument failures.
I'm no professional crash investigator, but I have to say that to my layman's ear, that sounds oddly familiar.
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June 3rd, 2009
vivian_shaw
| 01:40 pm - I'd have joined sooner if I knew this community existed.
I'm a confirmed disastrophile and accident-report junkie, and have been for some time. When I first came across the avsaf.org list of NTSB accident and incident reports I spent several happy days reading about fandisk failures and microbursts and tape over pitot/static ports and all the other things that cause mayhem and destruction in the air; more recently I've been trying to find a good copy of the Apollo 1 accident report containing higher-quality image reproductions of the post-fire photos than the one NASA has on its site. But I'm not just into aerospace disasters: my much-read copy of Greenpeace's Big Book O' Nuclear Accidents* is held together with duct tape by now, and I can go on at length about the Titanic, Andrea Doria, or Estonia, boiler explosions, and actual trainwrecks. I love this community already.
I've also just launched a disasterblog called What Went Wrong, which will be covering all sorts of natural and man-made catastrophes from hotel fires to building collapses to ferry sinkings to service-module explosions on Apollo spacecraft. It's influenced by but hopefully not too derivative of shows like Seconds from Disaster. Check it out if you're interested.
*Big Book O' Nuclear Accidents may actually be titled The Greenpeace Book of the Nuclear Age: The Hidden History, The Human Cost.
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April 12th, 2009
allyson13
 | 06:56 pm - Disasters on the Air?
Is it my imagination, but has anyone else noted the dearth of disaster programming of late?
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April 11th, 2009
April 2nd, 2009
z_gryphon
| 12:59 am - oil rig commuter choppers
Good grief, this is the third one (that I know about) so far this year. They mention one of the others in this article; in addition, one crashed off Newfoundland a few weeks ago.
As if working on an offshore oil rig wasn't bad enough already...
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February 18th, 2009
z_gryphon
 | 04:45 pm - deja vu
Didn't I see this same accident on Air Emergency last year?
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February 11th, 2009
z_gryphon
| 03:18 pm - all these disaster crash explosion clip shows
Really getting rather bored of racing boat crashes now.
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February 10th, 2009
January 15th, 2009
z_gryphon
| 11:49 pm - disaster averted
An A320 went down in the Hudson just after takeoff from LaGuardia today...
... and nobody died.
This is an astounding feat of airmanship on the part of the pilot, one Captain Chesley Sullenberg. It is mighty hard to ditch a modern jetliner on water and keep it in one piece. The engines (except on an MD-80) are in exactly the least helpful place for a belly landing on water. You have only to look at the case of Ethiopian Flight 961 for a textbook case study of how this kind of thing usually ends up.
Current reports also indicate that Captain Sullenberg remained aboard his (sinking) aircraft until he had entirely satisfied himself that no one else was left aboard, which is in keeping with the best traditions of people called "Captain". Well done, Captain Sullenberg! The disasterpornographists of LiveJournal salute you. It's not often we get a happy ending around these parts.
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September 25th, 2008
zonereyrie
 | 04:56 am - New show tonight - Collapse: When Structures Fail
I just found out about a new show airing tonight (9/25) on Discovery at 22:00 - Collapse: When Structures Fail. Looks like a one-shot, not a new series.
Current Location: 42.308929N 71.795328W
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/mely/lemonfaces/yawn.gif) tired
Current Music: quiet
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September 12th, 2008
allyson13
| 06:04 pm - Ike...
Those of you with DirecTV can watch Houston's KHOU live on channel 261. DirecTV did something similiar with Gustav.
Nothing like watching local news during a disaster.
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August 29th, 2008
zonereyrie
 | 09:06 pm - Important safety tip - DO NOT MESS WITH OXYGEN CYLINDERS!
It is a slide show of photos, just watch it. DAMN.
Current Location: 42.308929N 71.795328W
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/mely/lemonfaces/surprised.gif) impressed
Current Music: This video
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zonereyrie
 | 03:35 am - Modern Marvels "Dangerous Roads"
Tonight's episode of Modern Marvels on History was really a disaster episode, it was entitled "Dangerous Roads" - so guess the subject matter. All about accidents, various hazardous roads around the world, crash safety, highway safety, etc. It was interesting, but I think it really pushed the limits of what is a 'modern marvel'. A lot of what they presented was just "Wow, isn't this dangerous? Moving on..." It'll be repeating in the coming days if you missed it.
Current Location: 42.308929N 71.795328W
Current Mood: tired
Current Music: TiVo: Modern Marvels
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zonereyrie
| 02:11 am - Destroyed in Seconds
Well, I checked out the two premier episodes of Destroyed in Seconds. If 'Shockwave' on History is kind of a 'Best of' collection of disaster pr0n, this is strictly money shots. 30 minutes an episode, absolute minimal surrounding material, just the explosion, crash, etc. All served up with over-wrought narration full of hyperbole and more than a few factual errors. ($2 million dollar F-16? Yeah, you wish it was that cheap.) Not bad for what it is, but it is kind of unsatisfying if you actually like to know the story around things. A number of the events covered in these episodes have been on recent Shockwave episodes, and ever there they were covered in much more detail. Like the train hitting the semi - Shockwave included interviews with the cameraman, more back story, more footage, more with the truck driver, etc. Just more - and here I used to think Shockwave was a little light. It seems like a Ken Burns documentary compared to Destroyed in Seconds. This series is popcorn, definitely for the ADHD YouTube generation.
EDIT: You know, I forgot to mention my favorite part. They covered Operation Credible Sport in the second episode. The entire concept of Credible Sport was just so crazy that it is massively cool, and the end result is just amazingly bizarre. I always love seeing that footage, especially since I could only read about it for years, with a couple of still photos here and there, before the USAF released the footage and we got to see it in action. Still pretty amazing, and crazy.
Current Location: 42.308929N 71.795328W
Current Mood: tired
Current Music: TiVo: Destroyed in Seconds
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August 28th, 2008
z_gryphon
| 10:38 pm - Destroyed in Seconds
It's Shockwave, only half an hour long and on the Discovery Channel. And I'm not just talking about the format, the Overly Intense Narration, or the cheaply positioned commercials, though all of those are, shall we say, eerily familiar. No, what I mean is, the pool of video clips that fit this format is only so deep, and in the first episode alone, there are a number of old "friends", quite a few of which didn't appear for the first time on Shockwave either.
They include:
- The semi truck getting hit by a train in that boneheadedly-designed intersection.
- Lt. Chris Strickland punching out of his Thunderbirds F-16 just before it has a close encounter with the desert.
- PEPCON. (To experienced disasterpornographists, I need say nothing more.)
- That guy who crashed a racing boat, built a new one, and promptly... crashed it. (With bonus completely non-linear wife! Boy, I'd be tired of seeing that clip on TV if I were her.)
- The Incredible Disappearing Riverside Neighborhood.
I have to admit that, even as a disasterpornographist (and thus automatically subject to an abnormally strong watching-the-train-wreck imperative), I'm a little uncomfortable with shows like this one and Shockwave. The line between fascination and vulturelike sensationalism is a blurry one at the best of times, but something about these programs seems not only to cross it, but to back up a bit to make sure it has a running start. Destroyed in Seconds makes me especially uneasy in this regard, because it's not even being in some way original about it; it's just Shockwave, already a program in questionable taste, with the numbers filed off.
Current Mood: ambivalent
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