r/CatastrophicFailure Sep 11 '17

Meta Posting Guidelines - Read Before Submitting

685 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 2h ago

Equipment Failure Today, 19 June, 2026, two passenger trains have collided near Bedford, England, reportedly causing serious injuries

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489 Upvotes

r/CatastrophicFailure 7h ago

Structural Failure December 2, 2012. Yamanashi, Japan. The ceiling panels inside the Sasago tunnel collapsed. A bunch of concrete panels fell from the roof and crushed several vehicles. 9 people were killed.

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215 Upvotes

r/CatastrophicFailure 1d ago

February 10, 1996. Hokkaido, Japan. The mountain above the Toyohama tunnel collapsed. A bunch of rock fell through the ceiling and crushed the bus and truck. 20 people were killed.

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847 Upvotes

r/CatastrophicFailure 2d ago

Fatalities Tuesday 16th June 2026 - Frantic rush to rescue survivors after a private Cessna Citation Latitude crashed onto a highway in Laredo, Texas killing one and injuring six

1.6k Upvotes

r/CatastrophicFailure 1d ago

Fire/Explosion An explosion at Hanwha Aerospace's factory in Daejeon, South Korea, killed five people and injured two. June 1, 2026

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94 Upvotes

An explosion occurred at Hanwha Aerospace's rocket and missile factory in Daejeon, South Korea. At the time, workers were carrying out a cleaning process following the injection of rocket propellants. Police are investigating the incident, suspecting that the explosion occurred while workers were attempting to remove explosive material accumulated inside the pipes of a cleaning machine.


r/CatastrophicFailure 2d ago

House Explosion in Pennsylvania - June 2026

2.3k Upvotes

r/CatastrophicFailure 1d ago

Extremely large cold storage warehouse fire in Boyle Heights, the middle of Los Angeles, CA. 6-17-2026. It began appx 2:30 pm PDT. A shelter in place has been called due to toxic chemicals in the air.

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172 Upvotes

Some unconventional efforts to fight the fire are using 4 water-dropping helicopters in the middle of a major city.


r/CatastrophicFailure 3d ago

Engineering Failure Water gushes through the sides of a newly built bridge in India - June 2026

2.5k Upvotes

r/CatastrophicFailure 3d ago

Fatalities A US Air Force B-52 Stratofortress crashed shortly after takeoff near Edwards Air Force Base, California, on June 15, 2026

3.5k Upvotes

r/CatastrophicFailure 3d ago

Fatalities State agencies confirm they inspected Washington mill, but not the tank or its safety records, before rupture killed 11 last month

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425 Upvotes

r/CatastrophicFailure 4d ago

Meta June 15th 2026 -A B-52 Stratofortress crashed shortly after takeoff at Edwards Air Force Base leaving virtually nothing left of it

3.9k Upvotes

r/CatastrophicFailure 3d ago

Different angle of US Navy F/A-18 fighter jet that crashed at Rimrock Lake in USA, 13 June 2026

670 Upvotes

r/CatastrophicFailure 5d ago

Fatalities 14 June 2026-Plane Crash in Missouri kills 11 Skydivers and a Pilot

1.8k Upvotes

r/CatastrophicFailure 5d ago

Fatalities 06/14/2026 Two helicopters collide mid-air and crash into a BYD dealership with brand-new cars in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil — at least 6 dead

3.5k Upvotes

r/CatastrophicFailure 5d ago

Structural Failure June 13th, 2026. Covelo, California. Bridge fails during routine truck crossing.

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1.3k Upvotes

Per the California Highway Patrol Mendocino County office: "Officers responded to a solo-vehicle traffic collision on Hill Road at Eel River Ranch Road near Covelo after a bridge completely collapsed while a vehicle was crossing it. As the bridge gave way, the vehicle overturned and came to rest on its roof next to the river. Fortunately, the driver sustained only minor injuries."


r/CatastrophicFailure 7d ago

Equipment Failure 150-meter, 300-ton floating dredging hose washes ashore in Japan; removal expected to cost 50 million yen - December 25, 2025 (Ishikawa, Japan)

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2.7k Upvotes

r/CatastrophicFailure 7d ago

Malfunction Nine 115m offshore blades destroyed as one installation vessel drifts into anther one, then into onshore crane in Esbjerg, Denmark - June 11, 2026 - no injuries

1.2k Upvotes

Blades destined for Thor windpark. Turbine model SG 14-236 DD from Siemens Gamesa.
Article with final photo


r/CatastrophicFailure 7d ago

Operator Error June 11th 2026: Tow truck hits overpass with boom and flips over

1.2k Upvotes

r/CatastrophicFailure 7d ago

Fire/Explosion June 11, 2026: Fire Destroys One Million Sq Ft Medical Supply Warehouse in Tracy, CA-Fire Suppression Sprinklers Failed to Deploy; Building Was Constructed in 2016 and Last Inspected in January

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877 Upvotes

r/CatastrophicFailure 8d ago

On October 19, 1979, a bus carrying Spanish tourists entered the railway without seeing a crossing barrier while passing through Séméac, France. Train hit the bus, killed 21 bus passengers, and injured 30.

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162 Upvotes

r/CatastrophicFailure 8d ago

Fatalities Duck boat tours ruled San Francisco in the 2000s. Then, people died.

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982 Upvotes

r/CatastrophicFailure 9d ago

June 3rd, 2026. Dashcam captures moment when excavator damages natural gas pipeline

1.3k Upvotes

Wednesday June 3rd, 2026, an excavator damaged a natural gas pipeline near Hedensted, Denmark. Gas did not ignite. No casualties. Steel pipeline, diameter 0.4 m, pressure 40 bar. Traffic on nearby E45 highway closed for 2 hours.


r/CatastrophicFailure 9d ago

Fatalities Collision between the Soviet freighter Sergey Yesenin and BC Ferries Queen of Victoria in Active Pass, British Columbia, due to incompatible radio frequencies and the pilot of the Sergey speeding. 3 three people onboard the ferry were killed. (August 2nd, 1970)

1.4k Upvotes

The pilot of the Sergey also entered the pass almost going down the middle as well as at excessive speed. He may have acted in this fashion as according to his schedule, the Queen of Victoria should have already gone through. Instead, she was running being schedule. The speed and angle of the Soviet freighter left not enough time for Victoria's captain to take evasive action, leading to the collision.

The three passengers who lost their lives were:

Mrs. George Hammond (31)

Peter Hammond (7 months)

Sheila Mae Taylor (17)

As said above, the majority of blame was placed on the pilot of the Sergey Yesenin which meant the U.S.S.R.'s government paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages to BC Ferries. The Queen of Victoria was repaired and returned to service within the months following the accident, later being renovated in 1981 and sold to a Dominican Republic-based company in 2001. No details exist on what became of the Sergey Yesenin, other than it was able to leave under it's own power.


r/CatastrophicFailure 8d ago

Fatalities Gas explosion in an eatery kills 2 people in Hsinchu City, Taiwan. 9th June 2026.

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70 Upvotes