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What do Superman, an ancient historical relic, and a nuclear meltdown share? It may sound like an exciting movie plot, but they share a similar financial misfortune. While making mistakes is a part of being human, some foul-ups are much worse than others and can cause significant monetary damage. As you’ll see, even the most innocent mistakes can lead to substantial consequences.
If you’ve ever made a costly mistake, take solace knowing you’re in good company. From multi-million dollar conglomerates and political leaders of major nations to mega blockbuster movie franchises, everyone has made errors that led to huge repercussions afterward. Hopefully, we can learn from others’ mistakes.
To that end, we’ve put together a list of 20 costly mistakes from history worth learning from. You’ll notice that some of these mistakes were big while others were small, leading to a bigger problem.
1. Alitalia Airlines Forgot a Zero
While listing fare prices, Alitalia Airlines made a mistake that cost them millions.
CBC reported that the airline listed a flight fare from Toronto to Cyprus and accidentally missed a zero. They wrote it as $39 instead of $3,900. This clerical error resulted in a massive loss of $7.72 million for the airline. The only people who weren’t angry were the passengers.
2. NASA Messed up the Units
If you’ve been to school, you’ll know the importance of units and their conversions. For some reason, NASA failed to consider this when launching their Mars Climate Orbiter in September 1999.
According to CNN, there was a slight confusion between the engineering and Lockheed Martin teams. After the orbiter completed a 10-month journey, analysts could not extract the information because one team used English units while the other used the metric system.
3. Chernobyl Disaster
The 1986 Chornobyl nuclear disaster was one of the most significant errors in history. According to a paper by the Institutes of Global Health and the University of Southern California, the accident had major implications for the entire region, including health care for those affected by the radiation, relocation costs, shutting down and sealing the radioactive reactor, and infrastructure costs.
The accident cost the Soviet government billions of roubles, and radiation spread as far as Northern Ireland, where it affected livestock and farms. The accident could have been avoided if proper safety regulations and policies had been followed during what was, ironically, a safety test.
4. AT&T’s Network Center Debacle
AT&T lost $60 million due to a mistake in one line of code. Engineers Codex said a widespread system malfunction shut down the whole network operations center.
The communications giant lost a lot of money, and 500 airline flights were delayed. The problem stemmed from a software error in an update that contained a bug affecting 114 network centers.
5. General Motors Ignition Switch
An ignition switch essentially shuts down the engine, making it a critical component inside a vehicle. However, General Motors’ deliberate inaction resulted in the deaths of 124 people.
According to Vox, GM knew the problem existed in 30 million cars worldwide; however, since it was too expensive to fix, they decided to sell the vehicles anyway. The result was a $900 million fine paid to the U.S. government for the damages.
6. Superman’s Facial Hair
If you’re curious why the Justice League movie had awful CGI on Henry Cavill, here’s your answer. According to Variety, when some scenes had to be refilmed, Superman had a problem because he was also shooting Mission: Impossible, in which his character had a beard. That meant he had to travel between sets and have his facial hair digitally removed from every scene.
Not only did this cost the studio millions, but it looked terrible when the film was released.
7. Architectural Error
London is home to several mesmerizing buildings and towers. However, one architectural error resulted in significant consequences.
According to The Standard, when the Fenchurch Building (the Walkie-Talkie building) was under construction, the glass created concave mirrors, which caused the sunlight to reflect off its surface, causing nearby cars to melt. When engineers and architects realized this error, they took measures to fix the problem, but repairs cost $10 million.
8. King Tut’s Gold Mask
This Egyptian artifact dates back 3,000 years and was damaged when a restoration job went wrong.
The workers made a serious error, and Tutankhamun’s beard came off the mask. According to the BBC, the workers used epoxy to conceal their crime instead of using proper techniques and removed the excessive glue using sharp metal tools, further damaging the gold mask.
9. Oil Rig Damage
In 1980, a careless oversight led to a massive sinkhole formation at Lake Peigneur, Louisiana. According to 64 Parishes, the Texaco Oil Company reported that their drill got stuck near the salt mining operations.
When they pulled out the drill, a colossal crater swallowed everything in its way, and people hardly had the time to escape. That resulted in a 150-foot waterfall, costing Texaco $45 million in damages.
10. RMS Titanic
Britannica said the RMS Titanic sank on April 15, 1912, on its way to New York. The Titanic approached an iceberg field, and the icebergs were already hard to spot because the water was so calm.
Eventually, the ship scraped one of the icebergs on its starboard side, causing the front compartments on board the vessel to fill up with water, ultimately leading to its downfall. Only 705 people were rescued in lifeboats, and over 1,500 people died. Experts have dissected the event ever since and put numerous theories forward, but the one that people agree on is that the ship was traveling too fast. It should have slowed down since the captain knew icebergs were a hazard in that part of the North Atlantic.
11. New Coke
Not all rebranding efforts are successful; Coca-Cola is one of the most famous examples.
According to History.com, in 1985, the company introduced “New Coke,” a much sweeter soda than the Coke we know today. The taste was so terrible it led to a rise in their competitors’ stocks. While the company researched, its mistake was changing the branding and underestimating loyal drinkers’ emotional attachment to the taste they loved.
12. Big Trains, Small Tracks
You’d expect a massive company to check the dimensions of its tracks before purchasing trains, but that’s not what the SNCF Railway Company did. The BBC explains that in 2014, this French train operator bought 2,000 gigantic trains and found they were far too wide for the track.
All 1,300 platforms on the line had to be adjusted to accommodate the size of the trains, resulting in two years of work at a cost of 50 million euros.
13. A Lapse in Judgement
Twelve publishers rejected the Harry Potter series everyone loves and adores. According to The Guardian, J.K Rowling took to Twitter (now X) to post about it to comfort aspiring writers and encourage them to never give up on their dreams.
Those publishers lost out on an outstanding novel series, as well as the sales, movie residuals, and much more.
14. Typos Can Break the Bank
One typo can lead to millions of dollars in losses. According to The New York Times, a worker with the Japanese brokerage firm Mizuho Securities left his employees in a serious lurch when he made a typo while selling stock.
The worker accidentally sold thousands of shares for one yen each in 2005, leading to a massive loss of at least $224 million. That is perhaps one of the Japanese stock market’s most significant trading errors.
15. Yahoo! Sells to Alibaba
In 2005, Yahoo had a 30% stake in Alibaba, a Chinese e-commerce company. Seven years later, Yahoo sold its shares, earning what seemed like a massive $7.1 billion.
However, Alibaba went public in 2014, and the cost per share increased to $68, while Yahoo sold its shares for only $13. Yahoo made a judgment error and could’ve reaped more benefits if they had held on to their shares.
16. Residential Complex in Shanghai
According to Reuters, a residential complex in Shanghai collapsed in 2009. The cause was poor construction and a lack of a solid foundation caused by water from the nearby river seeping into the underground garage.
One worker passed away in the collapse. However, the loss of life was minimal, considering the damage to the building. Engineers ignored warning signs, and the company incurred $800,000 in damages, plus the loss of a man’s life.
17. Blockbuster Loses Out on Payday
In 2000, Netflix tried to sell their company to Blockbuster, but they rejected the offer. Blockbuster was popular for renting movies before online streaming platforms emerged.
According to Fortune, Netflix offered Blockbuster $50 million, but the company wasn’t interested. Nearly 25 years later, Netflix is worth over $150 billion and doing better than ever. Blockbuster ceased operations in 2014.
18. B-2 Bomber Crash
According to Popular Mechanics, in 2008, a B-2 military jet crashed just when it was taking off during a trial flight in Guam. While these jets are made to endure brutal conditions, a lack of quality materials led to the incident. The crash resulted from faulty sensors, although the pilot could eject safely.
While the incident only took two seconds, the cost of damages amounted to a whopping $2 billion.
19. Apollo 13
The infamous Apollo 13 space mission failed due to several errors. According to Space, the oxygen tank exploded. This incident was a result of multiple mistakes made by aerospace companies during manufacturing.
The tank combusted only 56 hours into the flight, causing severe damage to the service module and threatening the astronauts’ survival. The astronauts splashed down safely, but NASA suffered a cumulative loss of $28 million.
20. Russia Sells Alaska
According to the National Archives, the United States purchased Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million in 1866. Tsar Alexander II made the sale, and today, Alaska and all its oil fields are worth over $130 million.
Russia sold the property because of the Crimean War. They didn’t have the workforce to defend the remote outpost and would’ve lost it anyway. However, this was a huge mistake because the Russians could be $130 million richer with more oil.
15 Bizarre Items That People Bought and Sold on eBay
We all have an eBay account, but who still uses the platform? Traditionally, eBay was the go-to website to sell and buy used items. Now, there are many marketplaces for second-hand items, but eBay is the place where weirdness abounds. What’s the weirdest thing you’ve seen on eBay? I can bet it wasn’t as weird as some of these items.
Never Put These 15 Things Down the Kitchen Sink if You Want to Avoid a Huge Repair Bill
Many people don’t think about what they put down the kitchen sink. They just scrape all their food waste into the sink, turn on the garbage disposal, and watch it disappear. But many things can damage your garbage disposal or plumbing.
Here are 15 things you should never put down the kitchen sink if you want to avoid a huge repair bill.
18 Everyday Household Items That Are Surprisingly Valuable to Collectors
You don’t have to be a collector or hoarder to have several valuable things in your home. We all accrue many items over the years, some of which could be worth money. Even some everyday household items can be valuable, especially to collectors.
To help determine whether any of your household items are valuable to collectors, we’ve assembled a list of 18 everyday items you likely have in your house. Check out this list and see if any of your items can be turned into money.
