Day 140: 2020 Pandemic. Why Most Disasters Only Occur After Seven Things Go Wrong

Yes, that’s a plane that crashed just short of the runway. Why? Because the pilots shut down the wrong engine. And people in the rear of the plane knew it, but didn’t say anything.

Years ago, m wife (who is terrified of flying) and I became very interested in a television show titled Seconds From Disaster, which aired on National Geographic. Over the seasons it covered just about every plane crash and numerous other disasters. And we noticed a startling commonality. No plane crash just happened. There was always a series of mistakes, miscalculations, negligence and other events leading up to those final seconds and the disaster. Which led us to develop the . . .

The Rule of 7: no crash happens in isolation or as the result of a single event. It requires a minimum of 7 things to go wrong in order for an airplane to crash. And one of those 7 is always human error. It might not be the primary cause, but it is always a contributing factor.

I then started studying other catastrophes in different fields. Ranging from leadership (Little Big Horn) to maritime disasters (Titanic, Sultana) to economic (the Tulip Bubble) to the Donner Party to others. And the same thing played out. Always at least 7 things went wrong. One was always human error.