March 28, 1979 at Three Mile Island, a nuclear plant in Pennsylvania. An accident occurred from 4-6 am, in which operators were too fatigued to notice right away when coolant water was lost. When they did notice, they were not alert enough to take care of the problem efficiently. (1)
June 9, 1985 at Davis-Besse, a nuclear power generating reactor at Oak Harbor, Ohio. At about 1:30am, a control operator continually made the incorrect operations in response to a shortage of cooler water, resulting in a potentially serious situation. Disaster was prevented when the workers for the next shift arrived and took care of the problem. (1)
April, 1986 at Chernobyl, a nuclear reactor in Ukraine. With critical automatic safety systems shut off, the reactor began to overheat at about 1:30am. The sleepy shiftworkers didn't think to turn the automatic safety systems back on, but instead turned off the cooling system, causing the reactor to get too hot. In result of the explosion that occurred, many people were severely affected by the radiation. (1)
January 6, 1986 at the Kennedy Space Center. Before the Columbia space shuttle was to be launched, an over tired operator pressed the wrong button, the button that released needed fuel from the shuttle's tank. Fortunately, the error was detected in time to cancel the launch. . (2)
January, 1986 - Poor decisions were made by sleep deprived managers resulting in the Challenger catastrophe. (2)
August 1988 - Peach Bottom Nuclear Reactor in Pennsylvania was shut down because workers were found sleeping on the job. (2)
March 24, 1989 - The Exxon Valdez oil spill off the coast of Alaska had major consequences, including the cost of $41 million to help 800 birds and a few hundred sea otters. Many other animals could not be helped. An estimated 36,000 birds and 3000 otters died. (3) The total estimated clean up cost was about $2 billion! (4)
(1) Coren, Stanley. Sleep Thieves: an Eye-Opening Exploration into the Science & Mysteries of Sleep. New York: The Free Press, 1996. p. x, 241-4
(2)Morgan, David. Sleep Secrets for Shift Workers and People with Off-Beat Schedules. Duluth, Minnesota: Whole Person Associates, 1996. p. 7-8
(3) "Birds do badly after oil spills" Science in the News. November, 1996. C. 1996 BY SCIENCE MADE SIMPLE, INC. PO Box 503, Voorhees, NJ 08043 URL: http://waterw.com/~science/news96.shtml
(4) Dement, William C. The SleepWatchers. Stanford, CA: Stanford Alumni Association, 1992.
(5) Ever since I started working on this web site and been listening for "sleep in the news," every day I've heard or read about at least one report of an accident caused by someone being overtired. (Emilie)
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