Brady Heywood Podcast

Nov 21 2022 37 ep. 26 mins 6k
Brady Heywood Podcast artwork

A show about engineering failures and disasters. We examine the technical, human and organisational causes of failure, and explore why our decision-making is not nearly as rational as we’d like to think.

  Science  History  Technology
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Introducing 'Simplifying Complexity'

Nov 21 2022 25 mins  
As you can tell by the title of this episode this isn’t a normal episode of The Brady Heywood Podcast. In today’s episode we introduce you to a new show that we’ve been working on called Simplifying Complexity, a podcast all about complexity science. Simplifying Complexity is all about understanding the underlying principles that govern how systems work; systems as diverse as

Miami Bridge Failure - Part 3

Aug 31 2021 32 mins  
In today's episode, we bring to a close our three-part series on the collapse of a pedestrian bridge in Miami, Florida, in 2018. In part one, you heard about the cracks in the bridge and how nothing was done about them. And in part two, you heard about the serious errors that were made in the bridge's design. In this episode, we take a deep dive into two unanswered questions from t

Miami Bridge Failure - Part 2

Jul 31 2021 19 mins  
Today's episode is the second of a three-part series on the 2018 collapse of the International University Pedestrian Bridge in Miami, Florida. In our last episode, you heard how a pedestrian bridge under construction at the Florida International University collapsed in 2018 and killed six people. While many things came together to cause the collapse of this structure, the National

Miami Bridge Failure - Part 1

Jun 30 2021 25 mins  
Today's episode is the first of a three-part series about the 2018 collapse of the Florida International University pedestrian bridge in Miami, Florida. In this part, you'll hear how the signals which could have prevented the collapse of the bridge were ignored, leading to the deaths of six people. You'll also hear how the checks and balances put in place to identify these bad deci

The Brady Review

May 31 2021 20 mins  
Today's episode is a little different. It explores 'The Brady Review', a report Brady Heywood undertook on the mining and quarrying industry in Queensland, Australia. From January 2000 until the end of July 2019, 47 people lost their lives in the mining and quarrying industry in Queensland, Australia. That's an average of 2.4 fatalities per year, or 12 fatalities in any five year p

The Pike River Mine Disaster - Part 3

Apr 30 2021 34 mins  
CONTENT WARNING: This episode contains vivid descriptions of how the miners, who lost their lives in the disaster, died. Listener discretion is advised.   In this final episode of our three-part series on the Pike River Mine disaster, we bring the story to a close. We examine what took place on the day of the disaster, 19 November, 2010.   Resources and links: Royal Comm

The Pike River Mine Disaster - Part 2

Mar 31 2021 26 mins  
In part one of this three-part series on the Pike River mine disaster, you heard what took place in the minutes, hours and days following the methane explosion at the mine. In this episode, we’ll step back and look at the history of the mine. You’ll hear how the factors that led to the explosion didn't suddenly present themselves on 19 November 2010. Instead, they had b

The Pike River Mine Disaster - Part 1

Feb 28 2021 26 mins  
CONTENT WARNING: This episode contains vivid descriptions of the moments that the disaster occurred. Listener discretion is advised.   On the 19th of November 2010, New Zealand experienced one of its worst mining disasters when there was an explosion deep within the Pike River coal mine. Today’s episode is the first of a three-part series about the disaster. In this part

The 1976 Montreal Olympics Financial Debacle

Jan 31 2021 21 mins  
It's 1970, and the mayor of Montreal, Jean Drapeau, declares that the 1976 Montreal Games will be self-financing.  In his view, these games can no more have a deficit "...than a man can have a baby". In fact, he thinks the real problem will be in determining how to spend the surplus. But over the coming years, all this optimism will evaporate, and the games will become a finan

The I-90 Tunnel Collapse

Dec 31 2020 20 mins  
In this episode, we head to Boston. The 'Big Dig' was a road and tunnel construction project designed to solve Boston's congestion problems. With the final project cost exceeding $14 billion USD, this megaproject took 20 years to complete. It involved constructing 25 km of highway lanes, 8 km of tunnel, 16 interchanges and 200 bridges. But on the 10th of July 2006, at 11:01 pm, a s