EModern Marvels

S12 E11

Engineering Disasters 19

Examine one of the most mysterious maritime tragedies, when the sturdy Edmund Fitzgerald suddenly sank on a stormy night in November 1975; and unlock the mysteries of the rudder problems behind two Boeing 737 crashes--a 1991 United flight and 1994 US Air flight. Then, we take viewers inside one of the most dangerous but least-known nuclear disasters in US history--a meltdown at a secret government facility in 1959. We also travel to an oil storage facility where nearly 4-million gallons of diesel fuel suddenly flowed out as the storage tank cracked and catastrophically unzipped from top to bottom. Finally, we take a "close look" at microscopic structures causing gigantic problems in the electronics industry--tin whiskers, as they are known by researchers, that spontaneously grow from pure tin coatings on electronic boards and microchips.