MythBusters cause some collateral damage

The Ender

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jj-CErr0VOY&feature=g-logo

I love MythBusters, but holy fucking shit we're pretty lucky nobody was killed here.


I'm really disappointed in that I'm used to seeing Jamie insist on extremely high safety standards for their experiments.

override367

I bet it was Grant

he has the eyes of a killer

Organichu

jasbir's hair

oh my god!

syndalis

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2011/12/mythbusters-show-suspended-after-stunt-sends-cannonball-through-house/

Mythbusters has been suspended, a full investigation has begun into how this happened.

Heads will roll.

[Tycho?]

They should do a special episode with this one.

Nappuccino

I'm surprised the blame is going to the show and not the guys at the bomb range who were overseeing everything.

They're the ones qualified to be doing this, not the mythbusters.

Although, launching a cannon that close to civilization just sounds like a bad idea, perhaps most clearly in hindsight.

Mr_Rose

Man, they've been tweeting (cannon) ball jokes at each other for days. Who didn't see this coming?
Especially since their last cannon project ended in "ball not found - please retry from start" and the cannon being reduced to matchsticks...

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Bagginses

mcdermott wrote:

Sounds like they need to reconsider where they conduct such experiments. When we fire any kind of weapons, we have maps clearly marking out a cone (assuming you at least stay within the left and right range markers) of maximum flight distance for various ammunition types. We know pretty much exactly how far a tank round or arty shell can go, and make sure that there aren't like houses there.

Shouldn't have been hard to draw out a similar map for a cannon.

They figured their makeshift backstop would work, and it didn't. But that's a possibility you have to account for. Because fire enough things off, and it will happen. They're damn lucky nobody got killed. Might be more expensive to do this elsewhere, but probably less expensive than the lawsuit when you hit somebody's baby with a cannonball.

Of course, you're using known weapons. Who knows what a tree trunk cannon is going to do.

MushroomStick

Nappuccino wrote:

I'm surprised the blame is going to the show and not the guys at the bomb range who were overseeing everything.

They're the ones qualified to be doing this, not the mythbusters.

Although, launching a cannon that close to civilization just sounds like a bad idea, perhaps most clearly in hindsight.

That's pretty much how I see it. I never realized the bomb range they use was so close to things.

kildy

From the article I got the impression that while the experiment was "what else can we shoot out of this", the misfire was cannon + cannonball. Specifically, it bounced off something and went crazy.

I'm curious where this place actually is that it's so close to homes. In my mind, you'd want to do this pointed away from residential areas. Most of the explosives episodes I saw were at abandoned quarries and such where the hills would have made awesome backstops to a cannon.

Mr_Rose

Bagginses wrote:

Of course, you're using known weapons. Who knows what a tree trunk cannon is going to do.

Which is probably why they tested that on the seaward side of an old naval base and not on a bomb range that appears to be next to a residential area.

Siska

I hope they make a show where they prove that there is no plausible way that this could have really happened. "We did dozens of tests and we just could not get the ball to bounce that way, again".

matt has a problem

Mr_Rose wrote:

Man, they've been tweeting (cannon) ball jokes at each other for days. Who didn't see this coming?
Especially since their last cannon project ended in "ball not found - please retry from start" and the cannon being reduced to matchsticks...

The last cannon project they blew up purposefully, they plugged the barrel, after they proved it could fire a cannonball without blowing up.

Pi-r8

Bagginses wrote:

mcdermott wrote:

Sounds like they need to reconsider where they conduct such experiments. When we fire any kind of weapons, we have maps clearly marking out a cone (assuming you at least stay within the left and right range markers) of maximum flight distance for various ammunition types. We know pretty much exactly how far a tank round or arty shell can go, and make sure that there aren't like houses there.

Shouldn't have been hard to draw out a similar map for a cannon.

They figured their makeshift backstop would work, and it didn't. But that's a possibility you have to account for. Because fire enough things off, and it will happen. They're damn lucky nobody got killed. Might be more expensive to do this elsewhere, but probably less expensive than the lawsuit when you hit somebody's baby with a cannonball.

Of course, you're using known weapons. Who knows what a tree trunk cannon is going to do.

And I'm sure the army has occasionally misfired their weapons, too. They just don't do it on television, or in the middle of San Francisco.

override367

They army accidentally dropped an atomic bomb on someone's house once. It takes a few cannon mishaps to equal that.

MushroomStick

kildy wrote:

From the article I got the impression that while the experiment was "what else can we shoot out of this", the misfire was cannon + cannonball. Specifically, it bounced off something and went crazy.

I'm curious where this place actually is that it's so close to homes. In my mind, you'd want to do this pointed away from residential areas. Most of the explosives episodes I saw were at abandoned quarries and such where the hills would have made awesome backstops to a cannon.

The video shows a google maps view of the area and it looks like the place is on the edge of some little industrial park, just a few blocks from houses.

cloudeagle

Mr_Rose wrote:

Bagginses wrote:

Of course, you're using known weapons. Who knows what a tree trunk cannon is going to do.

Which is probably why they tested that on the seaward side of an old naval base and not on a bomb range that appears to be next to a residential area.

Which begs the question: why is the Alameda County Sheriff Dept's bomb range so close to a residential area? You'd think being that close, people would have complained about the booms a long time ago. Not to mention the fact the Mythbusters have literally blown up shit there 50 times already.

At any rate, it really does sound like a freak accident:

The cannon was supposed to travel through several barrels of water and a cinder block wall within the bomb range but, instead, hit something that caused it to shoot over the hillside and into the residential neighborhood below.

And yes, people were IN the house:

“They didn’t actually hear the cannonball come through the house. What woke them up was the settling of the sheet rock,” Sgt. J.D. Nelson from the Alameda Co. Sheriff’s Dept., who was on site as a safety expert when the incident occurred, told KGO-TV.

Yeah, this has the potential to get bad. And I'm just looking forward to Fox News getting hold of this:

"Tonight, we investigate why a team of hooligans who hate America shot a cannonball through an innocent patriot's house... using taxpayer money!

DevoutlyApathetic

kildy wrote:

From the article I got the impression that while the experiment was "what else can we shoot out of this", the misfire was cannon + cannonball. Specifically, it bounced off something and went crazy.

I'm curious where this place actually is that it's so close to homes. In my mind, you'd want to do this pointed away from residential areas. Most of the explosives episodes I saw were at abandoned quarries and such where the hills would have made awesome backstops to a cannon.

The initial report I saw claimed the cannon had it's barrel slip upwards just before firing. Do not know how accurate that is though.

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Feral

cloudeagle wrote:

Which begs the question: why is the Alameda County Sheriff Dept's bomb range so close to a residential area? You'd think being that close, people would have complained about the booms a long time ago.

Normally they're dealing with things the size of pipe bombs, not cannons.

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The Ender

Nappuccino wrote:

I'm surprised the blame is going to the show and not the guys at the bomb range who were overseeing everything.

They're the ones qualified to be doing this, not the mythbusters.

Although, launching a cannon that close to civilization just sounds like a bad idea, perhaps most clearly in hindsight.

That's true enough, but this is one of those, "Everyone shares some responsibility," things.

If you're going to be testing cannons, firearms, explosives, etc, you can't just be leaving it up to 'the other guys' to make sure you're testing it safely. Jamie & Adam are qualified to go & quadruple check everything to ensure a potentially lethal mistake hasn't been made.

Also, while I may rile up the Mythbusters fans, it might be possible through actual science and engineering methods to predict the maximum range of any given object, considering you have most of the variables necessary to do so. Length of gun, bore size, weight of the object, cross-sectional area (and other aerodynamic properties), weight of charge, etc.

I don't think the issue here, mind you, was an inability to predict the maximum potential range of the round/object being fired. They had a pretty good idea that it could reach populated areas, which is why they were firing it into their constructed backstop. They just didn't consider that their constructed backstop could fail.

^ This ^

I really, really love MythBusters. I think it's a great show with an important central theme.

But if we're going to be blowing stuff up in order to present an entertaining arena for critical thinking, we better be doing it responsibly & safely.

DevoutlyApathetic

Back when I watched a chunk of Mythbusters they always brought in specialists when they did stuff with "real" explosives. Did this stop being the case at some point?

Honk

The good thing is that the case will be hilariously easy forensicly, since it was all definitely filmed with several 200,000 dollar cameras at 5000 frames per second from fifty different angles!

dlinfiniti

i bet the secret service agent who killed the idea of them blowing anything up when obama was on has the smuggest look on his face right about now

Bagginses

Pi-r8 wrote:

Bagginses wrote:

mcdermott wrote:

Sounds like they need to reconsider where they conduct such experiments. When we fire any kind of weapons, we have maps clearly marking out a cone (assuming you at least stay within the left and right range markers) of maximum flight distance for various ammunition types. We know pretty much exactly how far a tank round or arty shell can go, and make sure that there aren't like houses there.

Shouldn't have been hard to draw out a similar map for a cannon.

They figured their makeshift backstop would work, and it didn't. But that's a possibility you have to account for. Because fire enough things off, and it will happen. They're damn lucky nobody got killed. Might be more expensive to do this elsewhere, but probably less expensive than the lawsuit when you hit somebody's baby with a cannonball.

Of course, you're using known weapons. Who knows what a tree trunk cannon is going to do.

And I'm sure the army has occasionally misfired their weapons, too. They just don't do it on television, or in the middle of San Francisco.

Well, except for that gay bomb incident.

In Boston, they used to make the whole area open its windows so they wouldn't shatter when they test fired Fort Warren's artillery.

jothki

The best way to handle this would probably be for the bomb range safety people to claim all responsibility for the accident, and have ABC state that they're paying all resulting damages anyway.

The Ender

Back when I watched a chunk of Mythbusters they always brought in specialists when they did stuff with "real" explosives. Did this stop being the case at some point?

No, they almost always have an expert on hand when dealing with this type of thing.

DevoutlyApathetic

jothki wrote:

The best way to handle this would probably be for the bomb range safety people to claim all responsibility for the accident, and have ABC state that they're paying all resulting damages anyway.

While ABC could do that but they're pretty unlikely to pay a penny towards this (directly.) They have a bunch of insurance on Mythbusters.

The question is what this will do their premiums and how much control the insurers require.

Pi-r8

mcdermott wrote:

Bagginses wrote:

mcdermott wrote:

Sounds like they need to reconsider where they conduct such experiments. When we fire any kind of weapons, we have maps clearly marking out a cone (assuming you at least stay within the left and right range markers) of maximum flight distance for various ammunition types. We know pretty much exactly how far a tank round or arty shell can go, and make sure that there aren't like houses there.

Shouldn't have been hard to draw out a similar map for a cannon.

They figured their makeshift backstop would work, and it didn't. But that's a possibility you have to account for. Because fire enough things off, and it will happen. They're damn lucky nobody got killed. Might be more expensive to do this elsewhere, but probably less expensive than the lawsuit when you hit somebody's baby with a cannonball.

Of course, you're using known weapons. Who knows what a tree trunk cannon is going to do.

As mentioned, the cannon/cannonball was a known weapon.

Also, while I may rile up the Mythbusters fans, it might be possible through actual science and engineering methods to predict the maximum range of any given object, considering you have most of the variables necessary to do so. Length of gun, bore size, weight of the object, cross-sectional area (and other aerodynamic properties), weight of charge, etc.

I don't think the issue here, mind you, was an inability to predict the maximum potential range of the round/object being fired. They had a pretty good idea that it could reach populated areas, which is why they were firing it into their constructed backstop. They just didn't consider that their constructed backstop could fail.

EDIT: Don't take any of that the wrong way, mind you...I love me some Mythbusters. But damn, this shit just seems irresponsible.

By that logic, no one should ever fire a gun at a firing range inside a city, because that's in a populated area and you never know when that backstop might fail.

Sounds like the weapon here wasn't the problem, it just happened to ricochet off something in a weird way and go over the backstop. I mean, yeah, they should checked that more carefully to make sure there was nothing in the way, but I don't think they need to be crucified over this.

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Hamurabi

Ah, YouTube comments section.

Anybody else who would get caught for this would be serving serious prison time, time we lock these geek fucks in prison and throw away the key, I'll volunteer to personally keep Kari Byron locked away in my basement.

Feral

mcdermott wrote:

The Ender wrote:

Back when I watched a chunk of Mythbusters they always brought in specialists when they did stuff with "real" explosives. Did this stop being the case at some point?

No, they almost always have an expert on hand when dealing with this type of thing.

Yeah, and I'm probably being too hard on the guys, since those experts should have vetoed the FUCK out of this shot.

Honestly, I don't understand how it got approved. Like I said, this isn't a cannon range, it's a bomb disposal site for crap like pipe bombs. I'm hoping we'll see some more details come through.

Nappuccino

mcdermott wrote:

The Ender wrote:

Back when I watched a chunk of Mythbusters they always brought in specialists when they did stuff with "real" explosives. Did this stop being the case at some point?

No, they almost always have an expert on hand when dealing with this type of thing.

Yeah, and I'm probably being too hard on the guys, since those experts should have vetoed the FUCK out of this shot.

Yep...

That is my interpretation of this.

The Ender

By that logic, no one should ever fire a gun at a firing range inside a city, because that's in a populated area and you never know when that backstop might fail.

Sounds like the weapon here wasn't the problem, it just happened to ricochet off something in a weird way and go over the backstop. I mean, yeah, they should checked that more carefully to make sure there was nothing in the way, but I don't think they need to be crucified over this.

Well, you do have to be much more careful when you're firing an extremely powerful weapon at / near a populated area, even if you're at a firing range.

If the weapon actually had caused a death or serious injury, would you still be saying, "let's not crucify them over this,"?

(Also, you're right, there's no need to go flying off the handle in this particular case - I'm just mad that people as generally thoughtful as Jamie & Adam slipped-up so badly)

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The Ender

Oh. This might explain things:

Savage and Hyneman were not present; the experiment was being conducted by their colleagues Tory Belleci, Kari Byron and Grant Imahara. Shooting was stopped once the crew learned what had happened.

Goddammit, those guys just aren't careful enough. They've done a few experiments with extremely questionable safety standards in the past (the creamer explosive, zapping Jamie as a practical joke, the 'car hitting a fruit stand' experiment, etc).


Also, to be fair to the younger 'Busters:

Sgt. JD Nelson, Public Information Officer and bomb technician for the Alameda County Sheriff’s office, who is a regular safety explosives expert for MythBusters, was on site and all proper safety protocol was observed. Beyond Productions is currently assessing the situation and working with those whose property was affected.”

Though there were no injuries, there was damage to the home and a parked car. “We had some tremendous bad luck and some tremendous good luck,” Sgt. Nelson told the

cloudeagle

It sounds like there was multiple safety elements in place -- not only was the cannon (initially) aimed at water barrels, but there was also a big hill between it and the community.

Unfortunately, the cannonball shot at an angle where it managed to glance off the hill like a skipping stone off water, rather than being stopped by the hill.

Arch

The Ender

It sounds like there was multiple safety elements in place -- not only was the cannon (initially) aimed at water barrels, but there was also a big hill between it and the community.

Unfortunately, the cannonball shot at an angle where it managed to glance off the hill like a skipping stone off water, rather than being stopped by the hill.

Yeah, the cannon was aimed too high, according to Adam. Which is still the fault of the operators, but it was a failure on everyone's part - not solely Tori, Keri & Grant.