Testing... What's Not to Love? A tough world needs tough tests

摘要

When writing my book Inviting Disaster, I devoted an entire chapter to the subject, ironically titled, "Doubtless: Testing is Such a Bother." There you'll find a rogue's gallery of insufficiently tested products such as the US Navy's Mark 14 torpedo and its Mark 6 magnetic exploder, a weapon that went off to the WWII Pacific theater with three major design defects that took almost two years to fix before submarine commanders could rely on it for war patrols. I also profiled Boeing's 767, which went into service with a hazardous glitch in its thrust-reverser interlocks. (Thrust reversers are the scoops that swing out from jet engines after a jet has touched down and needs to slow on the runway.) The Federal Aviation Administration permitted Boeing to do abbreviated testing on the risks of reverser deployment in flight, so the real danger wasn't detected until the accidental deployment of the reversers on an airliner over Thailand in 1991. That crash killed everyone onboard. And failure-to-test scandals continue apace, from cars to drugs to computers.