An unflinching look at the unique challenges posed by complex
technologies we cannot afford to let fail--and why the remarkable
achievements of civil aviation can help us understand those
challenges.
Nuclear reactors, deep-sea drilling platforms, deterrence
infrastructures--these are all complex and formidable technologies with
the potential to fail catastrophically. In Rational Accidents, John
Downer outlines a new perspective on technological failure, arguing that
undetectable errors can lurk in even the most rigorous and "rational"
assessments of these systems due to the inherent limits of engineering
tests and models. Building on this, Downer finds that it should be
impossible, from an epistemological viewpoint, to achieve the
near-perfect reliability we require of our most safety-critical
technologies. There is, however, one such technology that demonstrably
appears to achieve these "impossible" reliabilities: jetliners.
Downer looks closely at civil aviation and how it has reckoned with the
problem of failure. He finds that the way we conceive of jetliner
reliability hides the real practices by which it is achieved. And he
shows us why those practices are much less transferrable across
technological domains than we are led to believe. Fully understanding
why jetliners don't crash, he concludes, should lead us to doubt the
safety of other "ultra-reliable" technologies.
A unique and sobering exploration of technological reliability from an
STS perspective, Rational Accidents is essential reading for
understanding why our most safety-critical technologies are even more
dangerous than we believe.
