Decisions That Missed Disaster

Decisions That Missed Disaster: Some of history's biggest survivals came from small choices, like a canceled ticket, a coin toss, a stubborn refusal, or a forgotten key. These stories span doomed ships and planes, near nuclear launches, and averted catastrophes, and show how ordinary decisions can divide the living from the lost.

Milton Hershey: The chocolate magnate had booked passage on the Titanic but canceled because of a business matter. He lived to build his company town in Pennsylvania.

J. P. Morgan: The financier whose shipping combine owned the Titanic had reserved a luxury suite, but canceled the trip, reportedly because of illness.

Guglielmo Marconi: Offered a free ticket on the Titanic, the radio pioneer sailed days earlier on the Lusitania to keep working. Wireless messages from his system helped bring rescue ships to the Titanic's survivors.

Henry Clay Frick: The steel baron and his wife held tickets on the Titanic but canceled after his wife sprained her ankle on a cruise.

Father Francis Browne: A young Jesuit student sailed the first leg of the Titanic's voyage and took photographs, then received a telegram ordering him to get off the ship. His photos became the last known images of the liner at sea.

John Coffey: A stoker from Queenstown, Ireland, he deserted the Titanic at its last port by hiding among mailbags on the tender. He escaped the sinking while his shipmates stayed aboard.

David Blair: The Titanic's second officer was removed from the crew days before sailing and walked away with the key to the crow's nest locker. The lookouts reportedly had no binoculars on the fatal night.

Waylon Jennings: In February 1959 the young bass player gave up his seat on the small plane carrying Buddy Holly to the Big Bopper, who was sick. The plane crashed in Iowa, and Jennings carried the guilt of a joking farewell for decades.

Tommy Allsup: The guitarist lost a coin toss to Ritchie Valens for the last seat on the 1959 flight that killed Holly, Valens, and the Big Bopper. Allsup lived another 50 years and named a club after the toss.

James Alexander: The Bar Kays bassist flew commercially in December 1967 because the plane carrying Otis Redding and the band was full. That plane crashed into a Wisconsin lake, killing most aboard.

Ken Mattingly: Days before Apollo 13 launched in 1970, NASA pulled the astronaut because of exposure to measles. He never got sick, and later helped engineers devise the procedure that brought the crippled spacecraft home.

Sauro Toma: The Torino defender stayed home with a knee injury in May 1949 and missed the flight that crashed at Superga, killing the entire Grande Torino squad.

Antonis Mavropoulos: In March 2019, this Greek environmental engineer arrived two minutes late for Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 and was refused boarding. The plane crashed minutes after takeoff.

Tilly Smith: On a Thai beach in December 2004, the 10 year old recognized the receding water from a geography lesson and warned her parents about a tsunami. The beach was cleared, and no one there died.

Stanislav Petrov: In September 1983, the Soviet officer judged a satellite warning of five US missiles to be a false alarm and did not report it as an attack. The alert was caused by sunlight on clouds.

Vasili Arkhipov: During the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, he reportedly refused to agree to launch a nuclear torpedo from submarine B59 as US ships dropped depth charges. Launch needed agreement from three officers.

Goldsboro B52 Crash: In January 1961 a B52 broke up over North Carolina and dropped two hydrogen bombs. One bomb came down on its parachute with three of its four safeties failed, and a single low voltage switch prevented detonation.

Norwegian Rocket Incident: In January 1995, a scientific rocket launched from Norway was mistaken by Russian radar for a US missile. Boris Yeltsin activated the nuclear briefcase for the first time, then stood down when the rocket flew harmlessly away.

Able Archer 83: A NATO exercise in November 1983 so alarmed Soviet leaders that they feared a real attack. Intelligence from double agent Oleg Gordievsky helped persuade Ronald Reagan to soften his rhetoric.

Masao Yoshida: The manager of the Fukushima Daiichi plant in March 2011 kept pumping seawater into a reactor after headquarters ordered a halt. His defiance is credited with helping avert a worse meltdown.

Gimli Glider: In July 1983, an Air Canada 767 ran out of fuel at 41,000 feet because of a pounds and kilograms mix up. Captain Bob Pearson, an experienced glider pilot, landed it safely at a former air base in Manitoba with 69 people aboard.

Cypress Street Viaduct: When the Loma Prieta earthquake hit in October 1989, the Bay Area World Series game had lightened rush hour traffic. The Oakland freeway still collapsed, but far fewer cars were on it.

Vince Coleman: During the 1917 Halifax Explosion, the train dispatcher stayed at his telegraph key to warn incoming trains of the burning munitions ship. His message stopped a passenger train, and he died in the blast.

Frances Kelsey: In 1960, the FDA reviewer withheld approval of thalidomide in the US because of safety questions. Her refusal kept the drug off the market and spared American families the birth defects seen overseas.