Tales of Power System Failures: A Look at the Unusual, Strange, and Downright Bizarre Causes

As engineers, we may sometimes fail to pay sufficient respect to certain physical laws of the universe, more specifically Murphy's law, "If something can go wrong, it will." Based on that premise, presented for your consideration here are several anecdotal accounts of unusual, strange, or downright bizarre stories. Whether you view it as the failure of the smallest part disabling a large machine or the least expensive component on the most expensive board in a control system, whatever can go wrong...will. The more pragmatic among us also believe that Murphy was an optimist.