1987-1989 Disasters

[778]

There were quite of a lot disasters that happened in the UK between 1987 and 1989.

Zebrugge ferry disaster (1987), Kings Cross Fire (1987), Pipa Alpha disaster (1988), Clapham Junction rail crash (1988), Lockerbie disaster (1988), Hillsborough disaster (1989) and the Marchoniess disaster (1989). I know the Zebrugge ferry disaster did not take place in the UK but it involved a British ferry and the crew and passengers were mainly British so that probably counts as a British disaster.

There have been lots of major disasters in the history of the UK but very unusual to have so many 3 years in a row. Was it just a coincidence to have 7 major disasters in 3 years, or did they all have the same root causes? Maybe infrastructure was getting old in the late 80s and Health & Safety standards of the time were a lot worse than today?

 

[ls2270]

I’ve often pondered that myself! There were also the Purley and Bellgrove train crashes within a few days of each other in March 1989 both of which involved fatalities.

 

[66701GBRF]

Given Lockerbie was terrorism it probably shouldn’t be counted.

 

[Harpo]

All of the OP’s list of disasters had inadequate safety systems and workplace standards, arguably even Lockerbie.

Clapham is possibly the most repeated/echoed of those subsequently, with at least three significant wiring wrong-siders.

 

[OuterDistant]

I had similar thoughts recently. I was 6 in 1987 so just about old enough to be aware of the news around this time.

Kegworth air disaster, too.

 

[Cowley]

It did seem to be a time where there was something really serious happening every few weeks or so. I must admit that I’ve often looked back at those few years and thought about how awful the news stories were when the details coming out were often fairly sketchy to start with.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Shouldn't forget either the partially collapsed railway bridge over the river Tywi (at Glanrhyd near Llandeilo) on the Heart of Wales railway line in October 1987, when the train driver and three passengers sadly lost their lives.

 

[65477]

The baby boomers were taking over.

When I entered the world of work in 1970, all the Managers etc had wartime/national service experience. By the late 1980's we were moving into those roles.some businesses thrived on the new ways of working but for others those managers had to adjust. I know I was one of those baby boomer managers, including direct involvement with one of the disasters listed.

I think we are facing a similar position today, we were those setting security standards etc.. for IT, culture, technology, AI and threats have moved on and our way of coping with threats no longer work. This is leading to the greater success of cyber attacks.

 

[brad465]

If we go beyond the UK, the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill occurred in Alaska, which was the worst spill seen in US waters until Deepwater Horizon.

 

[Harpo]

@65477’s generational analysis is an interesting one and I wonder how much it contributes to the railway’s default job-stopped paralysis in a crisis?

Do we now have many staff left who have experienced……?
- Retasking displaced traincrew at ground level when the job-stopper is not local
- Redploying traction in odd ways just to make trains run
- Running adhoc trains where none might be running
- Tasked buses/taxis locally

Yes, there are no benches/BGs to aid stranded customers but that associated ‘can do’ focussed on the ticket holder drove so much.

 

[DarloRich]

@65477’s generational analysis is an interesting one and I wonder how much it contributes to the railway’s default job-stopped paralysis in a crisis?

Do we now have many staff left who have experienced……?
- Retasking displaced traincrew at ground level when the job-stopper is not local
- Redploying traction in odd ways just to make trains run
- Running adhoc trains where none might be running
- Tasked buses/taxis locally

Yes, there are no benches/BGs to aid stranded customers but that associated ‘can do’ focussed on the ticket holder drove so much.

I am not sure that has much to do with the topic under discussion!

There have been lots of major disasters in the history of the UK but very unusual to have so many 3 years in a row. Was it just a coincidence to have 7 major disasters in 3 years, or did they all have the same root causes? Maybe infrastructure was getting old in the late 80s and Health & Safety standards of the time were a lot worse than today?

A combination of complacency, aging infrastructure, institutional arrogance, lax safety standards, lack of investment, sloppiness, poor standards, lack of regulatory/governmental oversight etc

 

[Snow1964]

When I entered the world of work in 1970, all the Managers etc had wartime/national service experience. By the late 1980's we were moving into those roles.some businesses thrived on the new ways of working but for others those managers had to adjust. I know I was one of those baby boomer managers, including direct involvement with one of the disasters listed.

I think this is a significant factor, older staff had been taught by old hands that had done lots of practical learning and/or apprenticeships and showed them techniques to do things safely.

My father retired around that period, where he worked (and I think it was fairly common beforehand) female (and some admin) staff retired at 60 and men (and technical and manual grades) at 65. They equalised leaving age and was a sudden exodus of staff 60-65 retiring. This probably contributed to lots of people changing roles or gaining duties that they didn't know well.

The late 1980s economic boom was all new ideas and new ways of working, and the new staff tended to do what was needed by the business without having the deep down understanding of risks. So some mistakes became serious disasters due to sloppiness. Reading books on disasters all seem to have be because someone was sloppy and led to chain of failures due to inexperience.

 

[Bradford PA]

There were quite of a lot disasters that happened in the UK between 1987 and 1989.

Zebrugge ferry disaster (1987), Kings Cross Fire (1987), Pipa Alpha disaster (1988), Clapham Junction rail crash (1988), Lockerbie disaster (1988), Hillsborough disaster (1989) and the Marchoniess disaster (1989). I know the Zebrugge ferry disaster did not take place in the UK but it involved a British ferry and the crew and passengers were mainly British so that probably counts as a British disaster.

There have been lots of major disasters in the history of the UK but very unusual to have so many 3 years in a row. Was it just a coincidence to have 7 major disasters in 3 years, or did they all have the same root causes? Maybe infrastructure was getting old in the late 80s and Health & Safety standards of the time were a lot worse than today?

Particularly poignant for me : Zebrugge occurred on my birthday. I was living within half a mile of Clapham Junction and working at St George's Hospital at the time of the accident where many victims were taken. I was, additionally, following Bradford City as a member of their London Supporters branch and we had to travel through burnt out Kings Cross to an evening game and then Hillsborough happened, both events bringing back memories of the Valley Parade fire in 1985.

 

[Harpo]

I am not sure that has much to do with the topic under discussion!

My suggestion is that our resultant reactionary shift towards absolute safety has created a culture of scripted response to operational problems, with no ability to deviate/problem solve at lower levels of difficulty.

 

[DarloRich]

My suggestion is that our resultant reactionary shift towards absolute safety has created a culture of scripted response to operational problems, with no ability to deviate/problem solve at lower levels of difficulty.

ok - it is a fair point but I am still not seeing the connection with the topic

 

[Lewisham2221]

ok - it is a fair point but I am still not seeing the connection with the topic

I think I kind of get what @Harpo is trying to say.

In many of these types of incident (not referring any in particular) it is often found that there is no single trigger for the initial incident occurrence, rather a chain of events. It is also often found that the final outcome is affected by the chain of events sparked by the incident and the response to the incident. Having more rigid, well scrutinised plans and processes in place for, seemingly, fairly minor operational happenings aims to help break those chains of events before they can spiral into something far more serious. The aim is to help prevent staff involved becoming stressed, overwhelmed and more likely to take their eye off the ball and make a decision that could spark something far more serious.

 

[DarloRich]

I think I kind of get what @Harpo is trying to say.

In many of these types of incident (not referring any in particular) it is often found that there is no single trigger for the initial incident occurrence, rather a chain of events. It is also often found that the final outcome is affected by the chain of events sparked by the incident and the response to the incident. Having more rigid, well scrutinised plans and processes in place for, seemingly, fairly minor operational happenings aims to help break those chains of events before they can spiral into something far more serious. The aim is to help prevent staff involved becoming stressed, overwhelmed and more likely to take their eye off the ball and make a decision that could spark something far more serious.

Ok, noted. It is surely the LACK of plans of any sort of plan that is the driving factor in these incidents rather than the existence of inflexible plans?

PS I remember the Kings Cross fire well. By chance, my late father was in London on business that day and being before mobile phones there was a period of concern until he returned home on the train from Kings Cross later that evening.

 

[Strathclyder]

If we were to roll back a year to 1986 and go beyond British shores, you'd get the Challenger disaster (January 28th), the Hinton train crash (February 8th; Canada's worst rail disaster for nearly 40 years) & the Chernobyl catastrophe (April 26th; the worst nuclear disaster in history). Coming back to our shores, the Chinook crash near Sumburgh Airport (November 6th) also occurred that year.

 

[Gloster]

It is very difficult to draw a causal connection between a number of accidents just because they came in a relatively short period: for the most part they had different causes and were not connected. There might be common causes, I would point to the increasing pressure through the business community to aggressively adopt a ‘profits first’ ethos that (in my opinion) was one of the major elements of the Thatcher-era, but it could just be random.

 

[Strathclyder]

On the subject of the Zebrugge ferry disaster, my mother sailed on the Herald about a year or so before the sinking. Remember being thrown off kilter quite a bit by that when she told me.

 

[The exile]

I flew PA103 from Frankfurt to Heathrow a week before Lockerbie. When I bought the ticket - advertised check-in time was (I think) 45 minutes before departure. When I actually received the ticket, it had a sticky label on the front advising that that had been extended to 2 hours (IIRC) “for security reasons”. Coincidence? Have to say that it wasn’t a great feeling boarding the return flight in Jan 89.

 

[PTR 444]

There were quite of a lot disasters that happened in the UK between 1987 and 1989.

Zebrugge ferry disaster (1987), Kings Cross Fire (1987), Pipa Alpha disaster (1988), Clapham Junction rail crash (1988), Lockerbie disaster (1988), Hillsborough disaster (1989) and the Marchoniess disaster (1989). I know the Zebrugge ferry disaster did not take place in the UK but it involved a British ferry and the crew and passengers were mainly British so that probably counts as a British disaster.

There have been lots of major disasters in the history of the UK but very unusual to have so many 3 years in a row. Was it just a coincidence to have 7 major disasters in 3 years, or did they all have the same root causes? Maybe infrastructure was getting old in the late 80s and Health & Safety standards of the time were a lot worse than today?

If you’re including any event which resulted in a high number of fatalities (more than 10), there was also the Great Storm of 1987 and the Hungerford Massacre that same year.

 

[65477]

Just after my last post to this thread I happened to have BBC Radio 4 on in the car and caught the end of an edition of "In Our Time" which was discussing Hayek's book "The Road to Serfdom". Having now heard the entire programme it's interesting to hypothesise that Hayek's idea about reducing state intervention, which Thatcher took on board, might have a link to this subject.

 

[DunsBus]

There was also Kegworth in January 1989, which happened a few weeks after Lockerbie.

Piper Alpha was an avoidable tragedy, quite literally caused by a missing piece of paperwork relating to repairs.

 

[3141]

It is very difficult to draw a causal connection between a number of accidents just because they came in a relatively short period: for the most part they had different causes and were not connected. There might be common causes, I would point to the increasing pressure through the business community to aggressively adopt a ‘profits first’ ethos that (in my opinion) was one of the major elements of the Thatcher-era, but it could just be random.

I agree with your first sentence. In the case of your second sentence, I think "just random" is probably right. The circumstances that caused the Kings Cross fire had been building up for years. I can recall at least two occasions in the seventies and eighties travelling on cross-Channel car ferries and noticing that the main doors remained open for several minutes after we'd left the harbour. I doubt that that was in any way a result of Margaret Thatcher.

I do remember, in the late 1940s and 1950s, that there were quite often news items about accidents in coal mines, and reports of North Sea trawlers being lost. Air crashes also occurred fairly regularly, and there were the two losses of de Havilland Comets which led to a greater understanding of metal fatigue. Many of these things happened because of very different attitudes to health and safety.

The baby boomers were taking over.

When I entered the world of work in 1970, all the Managers etc had wartime/national service experience. By the late 1980's we were moving into those roles.some businesses thrived on the new ways of working but for others those managers had to adjust. I know I was one of those baby boomer managers, including direct involvement with one of the disasters listed.

I think we are facing a similar position today, we were those setting security standards etc.. for IT, culture, technology, AI and threats have moved on and our way of coping with threats no longer work. This is leading to the greater success of cyber attacks.

I'm not convinced about that. Baby boomers started arriving in 1946, so by 1988 the youngest of them were 42. Assuming a retirement age of 65, there were still very many managers aged 43 - 65. I doubt that a small proportion of baby boomer managers would have had such a disastrous effect.

Whether or not managers had served in the armed forces is a relevant factor is an interesting idea. As National Service recruitment ended in 1958 (I think) that means people born up to 1939 or 1940 would have done it. So they'd be around 48 when the disasters started happening. That still leaves a substantial number of managers with military experience who, if it was relevant, would be having an important impact on the way things were done, which doesn't really explain the disasters listed.

 

[Trackman]

On the subject of the Zebrugge ferry disaster, my mother sailed on the Herald about a year or so before the sinking. Remember being thrown off kilter quite a bit by that when she told me.

I was on her two weeks before she sank, could have been less.
It was a shock when I saw it on the news, but I'm not one for 'What if?' though.

 

[778]

There was also Kegworth in January 1989, which happened a few weeks after Lockerbie.

Kegworth does does seem to be as well known as the other disasters from 87-89. I had forgotton about that one. I should not have included Lockerbie as that was a terrorist incedent and not an accident like the other disasters.

 

[DarloRich]

I should not have included Lockerbie as that was a terrorist incedent and not an accident like the other disasters.

but surely caused by similar lax or at least weak processes compared to what we would expect now in relation to baggage handling, storage and transhipment

 

[778]

but surely caused by similar lax or at least weak processes compared to what we would expect now in relation to baggage handling, storage and transhipment

I would have thought the lessons learned from Lockerbie would have stopped 9/11 from happenning?

 

[DarloRich]

I would have thought the lessons learned from Lockerbie would have stopped 9/11 from happenning?

surely a different situation - 9/11 was people armed with box cutters breaking into cockpits not a secreted bomb in luggage. The lesson learnt from 9/11 was to have a locked and armoured cockpit door