The Research Corpus
The 65 cases
This is the pre-registered, frozen list of every disaster studied to build the Fatal Five framework — 65 cases, 175 years, 1849–2024. Every row is anchored to the best available investigative record: an official report wherever one exists. This is a reference table, not a marketing page: you can check every one.
| # | Disaster | Year | Domain | Toll | Anchor source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Banqiao Dam failure | 1975 | Infrastructure/water | 26,000–230,000 (est.) | HRW 1995; hydrology literature |
| 2 | CrowdStrike global outage | 2024 | Software | 0 direct; 8.5M systems; ~$5.4B (Fortune 500 est.) | CrowdStrike RCA; congressional testimony |
| 3 | Tenerife runway collision | 1977 | Aviation | 583 | Spanish/Dutch investigations |
| 4 | Ever Given Suez grounding | 2021 | Maritime | 0; ~$9.6B/day trade | SCA/flag-state investigation |
| 5 | BP Texas City refinery explosion | 2005 | Energy | 15 | CSB report; Baker Panel |
| 6 | Champlain Towers South (Surfside) | 2021 | Construction | 98 | NIST NCST investigation |
| 7 | Grenfell Tower fire | 2017 | Housing | 72 | Grenfell Inquiry (2024 final) |
| 8 | Aberfan colliery tip collapse | 1966 | Mining | 144 (116 children) | Aberfan Tribunal |
| 9 | Piper Alpha platform explosion | 1988 | Energy | 167 | Cullen Inquiry |
| 10 | Challenger (STS-51-L) | 1986 | Aerospace | 7 | Rogers Commission |
| 11 | Columbia (STS-107) | 2003 | Aerospace | 7 | CAIB report |
| 12 | Global financial crisis | 2008 | Finance | systemic; $10T+ | FCIC report |
| 13 | RMS Titanic | 1912 | Maritime | ~1,500 | British/US inquiries |
| 14 | Deepwater Horizon / Macondo | 2010 | Energy | 11; largest US marine spill | Nat'l Commission; CSB; DNV |
| 15 | Pemberton Mill collapse | 1860 | Industrial | ~90–145 | Contemporary inquest records |
| 16 | Iroquois Theater fire | 1903 | Public assembly | ~602 | Coroner's inquest; fire-safety histories |
| 17 | SS Eastland capsizing | 1915 | Maritime | 844 | Federal inquiry records |
| 18 | Cocoanut Grove fire | 1942 | Public assembly | 492 | Boston FD/NFPA records |
| 19 | Hartford circus fire | 1944 | Public assembly | 167 | CT State Police investigation |
| 20 | Our Lady of the Angels school fire | 1958 | Education | 95 | NFPA investigation |
| 21 | Beverly Hills Supper Club fire | 1977 | Public assembly | 165 | KY State Police / NFPA reports |
| 22 | Station nightclub fire | 2003 | Public assembly | 100 | NIST NCST investigation |
| 23 | Bhopal gas release | 1984 | Chemical | 3,800–16,000+ | Indian gov't inquiry; Shrivastava |
| 24 | Chernobyl Unit 4 | 1986 | Nuclear | 31 direct; thousands long-term | INSAG-7 (IAEA) |
| 25 | Herald of Free Enterprise capsizing | 1987 | Maritime | 193 | Sheen Inquiry |
| 26 | King's Cross Underground fire | 1987 | Transit | 31 | Fennell Investigation |
| 27 | Exxon Valdez grounding | 1989 | Maritime/energy | 0 direct; massive spill | NTSB; Alaska Oil Spill Commission |
| 28 | Hurricane Katrina levee failures | 2005 | Infrastructure | 1,392 | IPET; ILIT (Berkeley) |
| 29 | Fukushima Daiichi | 2011 | Nuclear | 1 direct; 2,300+ evacuation-related | NAIIC (Japanese Diet) |
| 30 | Costa Concordia grounding | 2012 | Maritime | 32 | Italian MIT investigation |
| 31 | Knight Capital deployment failure | 2012 | Software/finance | $440M in 45 min | SEC administrative order |
| 32 | Rana Plaza collapse | 2013 | Construction | 1,134 | ILO; Bangladeshi inquiry |
| 33 | Lac-Mégantic rail disaster | 2013 | Rail | 47 | TSB Canada report |
| 34 | Healthcare.gov launch failure | 2013 | Software/gov | national program near-failure | GAO; HHS OIG |
| 35 | Flint water crisis | 2014–19 | Water/public health | 12+ (Legionnaires'); mass lead exposure | Flint Water Advisory Task Force |
| 36 | MV Sewol sinking | 2014 | Maritime | 304 | Korean official investigations |
| 37 | Samsung Galaxy Note 7 | 2016 | Consumer product | 0; $5B+ recall | Samsung investigation; CPSC |
| 38 | Camp Fire / PG&E | 2018 | Utility | 85 | Butte County DA; CPUC |
| 39 | Boeing 737 MAX (Lion Air 610 + Ethiopian 302) | 2018–19 | Aviation | 346 | House T&I; JATR; NTSC/EAIB |
| 40 | Brumadinho dam collapse | 2019 | Mining | 270 | Brazilian investigations; expert panel |
| 41 | Beirut port explosion | 2020 | Logistics/gov | 218 | HRW dossier; FBI/French forensics |
| 42 | Texas Winter Storm Uri grid collapse | 2021 | Energy | 246+ | FERC/NERC joint report |
| 43 | Southwest Airlines meltdown | 2022 | Aviation/ops | 0; 16,900 flights, $1.2B | DOT enforcement; Senate testimony |
| 44 | East Palestine derailment | 2023 | Rail | 0 direct; mass evacuation | NTSB final report (2024) |
| 45 | OceanGate Titan implosion | 2023 | Marine/experimental | 5 | USCG Marine Board (2025) |
| 46 | Maui / Lahaina wildfire | 2023 | Utility/emergency mgmt | 102 | Hawaii AG / FSRI reports |
| 47 | Francis Scott Key Bridge / MV Dali | 2024 | Maritime/infrastructure | 6 | NTSB final (2025); USCG MBI |
| 48 | Boeing 737 MAX 9 door plug (Alaska 1282) | 2024 | Aviation/manufacturing | 0 | NTSB final (2025); FAA audit |
| 49 | St. Louis riverfront fire | 1849 | Urban fire | 3; city core destroyed | Municipal/historical records |
| 50 | Johnstown Flood (South Fork Dam) | 1889 | Infrastructure | 2,209 | ASCE investigation; historical record |
| 51 | Triangle Shirtwaist fire | 1911 | Industrial | 146 | NY Factory Investigating Commission |
| 52 | Halifax Explosion | 1917 | Maritime/logistics | ~1,782 | Wreck Commission inquiry |
| 53 | Boston molasses flood | 1919 | Industrial | 21 | Court-appointed auditor findings |
| 54 | New London school explosion | 1937 | Education | ~295 | TX inquiry (led to odorized gas law) |
| 55 | Hindenburg disaster | 1937 | Aviation | 36 | US/German boards of inquiry |
| 56 | Texas City ship explosion (SS Grandcamp) | 1947 | Port/chemical | 581+ | Federal investigations |
| 57 | Vajont Dam overtopping | 1963 | Infrastructure | ~1,900 | Italian inquiry; landmark case law |
| 58 | Apollo 1 fire | 1967 | Aerospace | 3 | NASA Review Board |
| 59 | Silver Bridge collapse | 1967 | Infrastructure | 46 | NTSB (its first major bridge case) |
| 60 | Turkish Airlines 981 (DC-10 cargo door) | 1974 | Aviation | 346 | French BEA; known-defect record |
| 61 | Hyatt Regency walkway collapse | 1981 | Construction | 114 | NBS (now NIST) investigation |
| 62 | Hillsborough stadium disaster | 1989 | Public assembly | 97 | Taylor Report; 2016 inquests |
| 63 | Oroville Dam spillway failure | 2017 | Infrastructure | 0; 188,000 evacuated | Independent Forensic Team report |
| 64 | Morandi Bridge collapse (Genoa) | 2018 | Infrastructure | 43 | Italian investigation |
| 65 | Itaewon crowd crush | 2022 | Public assembly/emergency mgmt | 159 | Korean special investigation |
Toll figures are approximate where cited sources disagree, and reflect direct fatalities unless noted otherwise. Pattern-frequency percentages are intentionally not shown here: the formal two-coder pattern-coding protocol against this corpus has not yet completed, and this page will be updated with those figures, labeled preliminary, once it has.