The Next Leap in Productivity: What Top Managers Really Need to Know about Information Technology

4.17. A Tragic Example

During the Gulf War, an American Patriot missile battery failed because of a software error that allowed aiming inaccuracies to build up over time. In training, the systems were restarted every few hours.

But in actual combat, the Patriot missile battery in Dharan, Saudi Arabia, had been running for 100 consecutive hours when it failed to intercept an incoming Iraqi Scud missile. The missile killed 28 American soldiers and wounded approximately 100.

Later analysis showed that the error had been detected and fixed in some parts of the code. But because there had been no root-cause analysis, there was no system-wide search for similar problems. And the results were tragic.