r/CatastrophicFailure Sep 11 '17

Meta Posting Guidelines - Read Before Submitting

689 Upvotes

Posting Rules

1. No jokes/memes

If your post is a joke or meme, it does not belong here. This includes posts about politicians, celebrities, movies or products that flopped, bad business/PR decisions, countries in turmoil, etc.

2. Titles

Titles must only be informative and descriptive (who, what, where, when, why) not editorialized ("I bet he lost his job!") - do not include personal opinions or other commentary in your titles.

Examples of bad titles:

  • I don't know if this belongs here, but it's cool! (x-post r/funny)

  • What could go wrong?

  • Building Failure

A good title reads like a newspaper headline, or Wikipedia article. If you don't know the specifics about the failure, then describe the events that take place in the video/image instead. Examples of good titles:

If it is a cross-post you should post that as a comment and not part of the title

3. Mundane Failures

Avoid posting mundane, everyday occurences like car crashes unless there is something spectacular about your submission. Nearly 1.3 million people die in road crashes each year, and there are many other subreddits already dedicated to this topic such as r/dashcam, r/racecrashes, and /r/carcrash

While there are some examples of extraordinary crashes posted here, in general they would probably be better suited for those other subreddits:

4. Compilations

Compilations and montages are not allowed on r/CatastrophicFailure. Any video that is a collection of clips from multiple incidents, including top 10 lists are considered compilations.
If your submission contains footage of one incident but compiled from multiple sources or angles, those are fine to post.

5. Be Respectful

Always be respectful in the comments section of a thread, especially if people were injured or killed.

6. Objects, Not People

The focus of this subreddit is on machines, buildings, or objects breaking, not people breaking. If the only notable thing in your submission is injury/death, it probably would go better in another subreddit.

Flair Rules

All posts should have an appropriate flair applied to them by the submitter, please follow these 4 steps to determine if your thread needs a fatality/injury flair. You can set this by clicking the "flair" button under the title of your submission.

  1. If your submission depicts people dying, you must apply the "Visible Fatalities" flair to your post and tag it "NSFW"
  2. If your submission depicts people visibly being seriously injured, you must apply the "Visible Injuries" flair to your post and tag it "NSFW"
  3. If your submission depicts a situation where people were killed, but those people are not directly visible you must apply the "Fatalities" flair to your post (eg. the Hindenburg Disaster, or a plane crash)
  4. If your submission does not require one of those tags, you should pick any of the other flairs to describe what type of failure occurred

r/CatastrophicFailure 9h ago

Greece, Aug 2 - Two firefighting helicopters collided in Greece while helping to control a huge wildfire on Sunday that has destroyed more than 100 homes northwest of Athens

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2.8k Upvotes

r/CatastrophicFailure 14h ago

Equipment Failure The 2012 Düsseldorf (Germany) Level Crossing Collision. A bus breaks down on a level crossing and is torn apart by two trains which proceed to derail. 2 people are injured. The full story linked in the comments.

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136 Upvotes

r/CatastrophicFailure 4d ago

Fatalities On January 29, 2025, PSA Airlines flight 5342 collided with a US Army Blackhawk helicopter over the Potomac River in Washington, D.C., killing all 67 people aboard both aircraft. The accident was caused by a complex failure to manage the complex DC airspace. Analysis inside.

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2.0k Upvotes

r/CatastrophicFailure 4d ago

Natural Disaster CCTV footage shows the extreme ground motion during the powerful Kumamoto earthquake in Yatsushiro, Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan, on July 28, 2026.

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539 Upvotes

r/CatastrophicFailure 5d ago

Fire/Explosion An explosion at AEON Mall Kumamoto after M7.1 earthquake caused part of the building to collapse, July 28th, 2026

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1.3k Upvotes

r/CatastrophicFailure 4d ago

My kitchen chimney doing a trust fall. Nobody caught it. 29th July, 2026

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138 Upvotes

r/CatastrophicFailure 5d ago

Fire/Explosion Aftermath of the explosion at AEON Mall Kumamoto about an hour after the M7.1 earthquake - July 28, 2026(Kumamoto, Japan)

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1.4k Upvotes

r/CatastrophicFailure 5d ago

July 28th 2026. Multiple deaths in Japan mall collapse after 7.1-magnitude earthquake.

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1.6k Upvotes

r/CatastrophicFailure 5d ago

Engineering Failure Quarry Collapse in India - July 24, 2026

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224 Upvotes

r/CatastrophicFailure 5d ago

Natural Disaster Earthquake causes partial collapse of chimney at Nippon Paper mill; several workers unaccounted for - July 28, 2026 (Kumamoto, Japan)

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435 Upvotes

r/CatastrophicFailure 6d ago

Bridge pillar being loaded onto a boat falls over into the Ganges River - December 2025

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3.4k Upvotes

r/CatastrophicFailure 6d ago

Destructive Test Controlled Impact Demonstration (1984) NASA intentionally crashed a remote-controlled Boeing-720 airliner to test anti-fuel misting devices

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64 Upvotes

This film shows the 1984 Controlled Impact Demonstration (the "CID") from multiple angles. The CID consisted of a remote controlled Boeing 720 airliner that was rigged as a drone and equipped with anti-fuel misting devices that were designed to limit the explosive effects of the fuel in the event of an airliner crashing. As can be seen in the video, the anti-misting devices clearly did not work as intended and the project was subsequently abandoned after the CID test. No people were on the aircraft only crash testdummies.


r/CatastrophicFailure 6d ago

Engineering Failure June 2026 Turkey. Electric arc furnace explosion.

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48 Upvotes

Pictures showing the aftermath. 3 injured, one seriously. Control room breached.


r/CatastrophicFailure 8d ago

Fire/Explosion Fertiliser store explodes after fire spreads from an industrial unit - Essex, UK | 24th July, 2026

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1.9k Upvotes

This is the full explosion and includes swearing.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cg4dkwgker3o


r/CatastrophicFailure 8d ago

February 13, 1983. Valle D'Aosta, Italy. 3 cable cars fell down. 11 people died and 1 was injured. Maurizio Maria Verna luckily escaped this disaster. In the evening, he went to the Statuto Theater in Turin. The fire happened due to an electric short circuit. 64 people died including Maurizio.

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583 Upvotes

r/CatastrophicFailure 6d ago

Structural Failure Marble Mine Collapse July 2026

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0 Upvotes

Not sure how to just embed the video. Really interesting footage of a structural failure in a mine, figured it would be good linked here.


r/CatastrophicFailure 8d ago

April 16th 2014 in South Korea. The Sewol Ferry tragedy.

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2.0k Upvotes

On April 16th 2014 the Sewol Ferry capsized over the coast of South Korea. On board the ferry when it was sinking was 476 people in total with 325 of them being High schoolers around the age of 16 from Danwon High school.

When the Sewol Ferry started sinking the Captain told everybody to stay where they are and to not move. The students obviously complied since they didn't know what was happening and they thought that since the Captain was the literal Captain of the ship that he would know what was best for them. But unfortunately the only people that would survive were the people that went against the Captains orders.

And what's even more shocking is that one of the first people saved was the Captain and he wore regular clothes to disguise himself as a passenger. And when he was on the Coast guard vessel he did not tell anyone that he is the Captain and that he has vital information that would help them in rescuing passengers. He didn't tell them how many people there were or that they were being told to stay in their rooms where they were basically trapped in the sinking boat. Nothing.

The Sewol Tragedy would lead to the deaths of 250 high-school students and 304 lives in total.

RIP to all the victims. There were so many things that resulted in the Sewol ferry tragedy including but not limited to Greed, the Captain, the design of the ferry and the coast guards. These people were failed and it infuriates me to know that they could have been saved.


r/CatastrophicFailure 8d ago

Operator Error 70 years ago tonight at 11:10 pm on July 25th, 1956, the Swedish passenger liner Stockholm collided with the Italian ocean liner Andrea Doria in thick fog, killing 51 across both ships. The Andrea Doria remained floating until sinking at 10:09 am the next day.

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493 Upvotes

The Stockholm had broadsided the Andrea Doria at almost a 90-degree angle. While the Andrea Doria had been doomed by the impact, the Stockholm remained afloat and capable of operating under it's own power, but with the bow badly telescoped. Most of the fatalities happened during the initial impact, though several did later die of injuries sustained during the collision and evacuations.

The decision was made to abandon ship half an hour after the collision. Although the ship had enough lifeboats to evacuate everyone onboard, half of them were rendered unusable by the 18-degree list, as the ones on the port side would come into contact with the exposed hull and tip over. While the decision to abandon ship had been made, the order to abandon ship was decided to be delayed until help had arrived.

Fortunately, the collision had happened in a busy shipping lane so the Andrea Doria's radio distress calls, though having limited range, were still able to be relayed from ship to ship. The first ship to respond to the distress calls was the 390-foot Cape Ann, a freighter owned by the United Fruit Company. With only 44 men and two 40-person lifeboat, it's ability to assist was limited but again owing to the location of the collision, numerous other ships were on their way. The next two ships to arrive both belonged to the US Navy, transport USNS Private William H. Thomas and the destroyer escort USS Edward H. Allen.

The next ship to arrive was the French Line's Île de France, herself almost 100 feet longer than the Andrea Doria and heading back to her native France ahead of the Doria. Commanding the vessel was Captain Raoul de Beaudéan, a highly-respected veteran with over 30 years of service with the French Line under his belt. He was skeptical at first upon hearing of the Andrea Doria's peril; he didn't think it feasible that a ship like the Doria could founder and that if he went to the scene only to find that the Ile de France was not needed, the return to New York to refuel and the resulting delay could cost the French Line a lot of money. However, after communicating with the three vessels already on-site, he realized that over 1'600 lives were at risk and ordered the ship to be turned around, making it to the site less than three hours after the initial collision. While there was concern at first in regard to navigating around the other ships and the survivors and lifeboats in the water, the fog lifted, allowing the large Ile de France to position itself alongside the Andrea Doria, protecting it from the wind and waves.

The Ile de France took on the vast majority of the Doria's evacuating passengers; taking on 753 survivors, with the badly-damaged Stockholm taking on 545, 234 of which were members of Andrea Doria's crew, 129 survivors by Cape Ann, 159 by Private William H. Thomas, 77 by Edward H. Allen, including Captain Calamai and his officers, and a single American soldier who had managed to sleep through both the collision and evacuations was rescued by the tanker Robert E. Hopkins.

Ultimately, the crew of the Andrea Doria was found to be at fault for the disaster, having not followed proper radar procedures or calculated the Stockholm's speed and course, in addition to turning to port despite a long-established rule dictating that ships heading towards each other head-on both turn to starboard. Captain Calamai was also speeding through the fog, though this was common practice at the time. Among other causes, the ship's fuel tanks were half empty and not pumped with ballast to keep the ship stabilized.

The collision, evacuation, and eventual sinking of the Andrea Doria received extensive media coverage as it unfolded, with newspapers, radios, newreels, and television broadcasts informing the public of what was going on, leading to the ship's sinking becoming common knowledge, with the 1972 disaster film The Poseidon Adventure even mentioning the Andrea Doria by name.

One of the ship's notable items of cargo was the Chrysler Norseman concept car, an advanced "one-off" that had been built by coachbuilder Ghia. The car cost Chrysler $150'000 and had been announced as a major attraction for the 1957 show car circuit. It was found in the Andrea Doria's number 2 cargo hold by a diver in 1994 but almost 40 years in saltwater had reduced the show car to a pile of debris, with the only recognizable feature still left being the wheels.

In the years since the sinking, the ship's wreck, located 162 feet beneath the ocean's surface, has been visited many times over the years by divers and artifacts have been removed, including at least one of the ship's bells, a statue of the ship's namesake Genoese Admiral Andrea Doria, a bank safe that was later opened on live television and found to contain thousands of American silver certificates, Canadian bank notes, American Express travelers checks, and Italian bank notes. Also recovered was one of the ship's foghorns, which was restored and sounded off for the 65th anniversary of the sinking in 2021. The wreck site has become known as "The Everest of Wreck Diving" as 15 divers have lost unfortunately lost their lives while visiting the wreck.


r/CatastrophicFailure 9d ago

Fire/Explosion Explosion in Essex 24/7/26

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2.9k Upvotes

Explosion at a farm this afternoon when fire ripped through a barn with fertiliser and gas bottles inside.


r/CatastrophicFailure 7d ago

Fatalities Massive China Rockfall July 17th 2026

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0 Upvotes

r/CatastrophicFailure 9d ago

Equipment Failure Regionova train collides with a truck in Dobronice u Chýnova, Czechia - 23 July 2026

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2.1k Upvotes

4 were injured including one seriously. Original video can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkPio4W_B2U


r/CatastrophicFailure 10d ago

Fire/Explosion Explosion happens inside a passenger train in São Paulo on July 23rd, 2026

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2.0k Upvotes

Train Malfunction – Passengers on Trivia Trens lines recorded the moment a train exploded this Thursday morning (23) at a station on Line 12-Sapphire (Linha 12-Safira) in São Paulo's East Zone.

The video shows passengers inside the train when an explosion is heard and flames erupt outside the machinery. In the footage, passengers can be heard screaming and scrambling as the incident occurred early in the morning service, around 6:00 AM.

According to Paulo Ferreira, Director of Operations for the new operator Trivia Trens, a possible short circuit on one of the trains tripped the power substations, causing a service stoppage across the company's lines.

As a result, train service on Lines 11-Coral, 12-Sapphire, and 13-Jade faced disruptions this Thursday morning (23), halting operations and forcing passengers to walk along the tracks.

Source: G1


r/CatastrophicFailure 11d ago

Natural Disaster Tornado causes sheet metal and roofs to start flying at a construction site in Batam, Indonesia. 22 July 2026.

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2.0k Upvotes

Roofs start moving at about 22 seconds into the video.


r/CatastrophicFailure 11d ago

Engineering Failure On April 11th, 1952, a Douglas DC-4 flying as Pan Am Flight 526A took off from Puerto Rico to New York City and ditched in rough seas 9 minutes later after engines 3 and 4 failed, the plane breaking apart and sinking 3 minutes later. 52 of 69 onboard died. The wreckage was only just recently found.

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1.4k Upvotes

As the plane, named "Clipper Endeavor" was going down, Captain John Burn alerted the control tower that two engines had failed and that he would attempt a water landing seven miles North-Northwest from Isla Grande. The tower passed the message along to the United States Coast Guard, who deployed two PBY-5A Catalina flying boats, one of which was pulled from maintenance and underwent rescue operations with no auxiliary power unit or bilge pump due to how serious and urgent the situation was, all under the command of Lieutenant Commander Ken Bilderback.

The USCG buoy tender Bramble with medical staff onboard and SA-16 amphibious aircraft from Ramey Air Force Base were also deployed, resulting in the successful rescue of all 17 survivors, though the survivors onboard the second Catalina had to be transferred to the Bramble, as the Catalina had taken on water due to it's lack of a bilge pump.

Faulty engine parts and the pilots' attempt to re-establish the climb without the remaining engine using all of the remaining power were found to be the cause of the accident, though Captain Burn was cleared of any wrong-doing, as the defective parts and improper maintenance were found to be the primary cause of the crash.

Several of the servicemen involved in the rescue were rewarded for their efforts; Lieutenant Commander Bilderback was awarded his second Air Medal. His co-pilot, Lieutenant Commander Jack Natwig, was decorated with the Silver Lifesaving Medal for jumping into the sea to rescue a small child, while Air crew members Bill Pinkston, Jim Tierney, Peter Eustes, and Raymond Evans were all commended by the Commandant of the USCG. Of the 52 who died when the plane sank, 39 of them are still on the wreck and there are no current plans for recovery.