[embik]

Not entirely true:

> Dittmann could not find an emergency brake in the corridor and had not noticed that there was an emergency brake handle in his own compartment.

The learning from that should maybe instead be to keep non-technical management out of engineering decisions. The Wikipedia article fails to mention there was a specific manager who pushed the new wheel design into production and then went on to have a long successful career.

[namaria]

I dislike the current trend of calling lessons "learnings". I don't understand the shift in meaning. Learning is the act of acquiring knowledge. The bit of knowledge acquired has a long established name: lesson. What's the issue with that?

[rob74]

The English article sounds more like he started looking for an emergency brake after he had notified the conductor (and apparently failed to convince him of the urgency of the situation), not before. The German article is much longer, but only mentions that both the passenger and the conductor could have prevented the accident if they would have pulled the emergency brake immediately, but that the conductor was acting "by the book" when he insisted on inspecting the damage himself before pulling the brake.

[jacquesm]

In the movie 'Kursk' there is exactly such a scene and the literal quote is 'By the book, better start praying. I'm not reli...".

[svrtknst]

I dont think it should be "instead". Suggesting that emergency brakes are inadequate due to one passenger failing to locate one is kinda cheap.

We could also easily construe your argument as "engineers would never design a flaw", which is demonstrably untrue. We should both work to minimize errors, and to provide a variety of corrective measures in case they happen.

[embik]

> Suggesting that emergency brakes are inadequate due to one passenger failing to locate one is kinda cheap.

That’s not what I wanted to say at all - the op talked about the willingness to pull the emergency brake, but my understanding is that he was willing to but due to human error failed to find it. I didn’t mean to suggest in any way that emergency brakes are not important.

> We could also easily construe your argument as "engineers would never design a flaw"

Another thing I didn’t say. The whole original link is proof that engineers make mistakes all the time.