Author Archives: walterh

They Hyatt Regency, Kansas City Skywalk Collapse of July, 1981

Today’s podcast goes just a few years back and focuses on the skywalk collapse that happened at the Hyatt Regency, Kansas City hotel back in July, 1981.  The collapse had one main reason for failure, and some circumstances that might have even prevented it, had the suggestions been met with proper acknowledgement instead of disapproval from […]

The Dawson Mining Catastrophe of 1913

Today’s podcast goes into the history of Dawson, New Mexico, and the explosions that took the lives of many miners since the mines opened in 1901.  The explosion of Stag Canyon #2 in 1913 remains one of the largest loss of life during a mining operation in America’s history. As usual, you can download the […]

The Eschede, Germany ICE Train Derailment

Today’s podcast is about the German ICE (Inter-City Express) train derailment and subsequent catastrophe in the sleepy German town of Eschede that took place in June, 1998.  While this isn’t Germany’s biggest rail disaster, it’s one of the most well known in modern times, resulting in 101 people being killed and almost 90 being injured. […]

New Article on and Old Crash

So while CNN and the rest of the world focuses on the fate of Malaysia Flight 370, we are coming up on the anniversary of one of the most notable, memorable crashes in modern time.  That crash was United Flight 232, the DC10 that crashed at Sioux City Airport on July 19, 1989. Popular Mechanics […]

Some Suggestions

Based on the last podcast, the Hartford Circus Fire, I’ve got a couple of suggestions that I can pass on – both on the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. The first is the podcast from Stuff You Missed In History Class, a part of StuffYouShouldKnow.com.  They did a really good podcast on the Triangle Shirtwaist fire […]

The Hartford Circus Fire of 1944

Today’s podcast, which I published earlier in the day before I got a chance to do a blogpost about it, is about the Hartford circus fire of 1944.  This fire remains one of the largest fires in terms of casualties (between 165 and 185 killed, and about 700 injured) in the history of the United […]

An Odd Finding

So I just happened to do a Google search for “retired flight numbers” and one of the first things that came up was American Airlines Flight 1, which operates daily between JFK and LAX.  Historically, airlines will retire flight numbers after a crash.  But in this case, even though there was a crash of an […]

Heed the warning!

So this morning’s podcast somehow reminded me of the time an A380 wing clipped a CRJ 700 by the tail, flipping the entire plane almost a full 90 degrees.  Remember when they tell you not to take off your seatbelt until the captain turns off the light at the end of each flight?  I’m hoping […]

The O’Hare Runway Incursion of December 20th, 1972

Today’s podcast is on a catastrophe that’s relatively unknown in the realm of airline crashes and catastrophes, but the effects as a result of the investigation into the crash is something that we can see, and live with to this day.  As a matter of fact, you basically pay honor or tribute to all those […]

The Great Chinese Famine of 1958-1961

Today’s podcast is something that is such a vast subject, that my 16 minutes barely scratches the surface.  There’s still so much to learn about what happened, and all of the events that led up to the Great Chinese Famine of 1958-1961, aka “The Great Leap Forward”. As usual, you can download the podcast from […]