BILLION Dollar Mistakes That Can't Be Undone

 

hello guys and welcome to the article  nobody likes making mistakes especially  when there's money involved even small  mistakes can be quite frustrating so  imagine how you'd feel if you had made  one of the most expensive mistakes in  history these people made mistakes worth  millions and billions of dollars and  some even cost people their lives from  horrible corporate mergers to  unbelievable oil spills these expensive  mistakes come in all shapes and sizes  let's take a look number 12 the copper  King Falls cost 2.6 billion dollars  Yasu hamanaka was a shrewd investor with  one big dream palma nacos desire was to  corner the market on copper but  unfortunately he resorted to  manipulative practices though his shady  dealings brought him success for a time  ultimately Hama naka found himself in  jail coppers a tricky commodity and the  top copper holders in the world have  startingly small percentages of the  stuff with just 5% of the world's shares  of copper hamanaka was a power player  however when the price of copper began  to fall his dreams fell apart  all told hamanaka lost 2.6 billion  dollars in the course of his copper  schemes number 11 stealth bomber crashed  on takeoff cost one point four billion  dollars in 2008 the b-2 stealth bomber  was the most expensive plane in the Air  Force arsenal there were only 21 of the  Bombers made at that time  despite the planes tremendous cost it  could still be brought down by a simple  mistake during a test flight in Guam a  faulty sensor and a b2 caused the plane  to stall during takeoff it immediately  crashed ruining 1.4 billion dollars with  it water had gotten into the sensor  because the technique to deal with the  moisture and the engines hadn't been  properly communicated to the right  personnel luckily the two pilots in the  plane were able to safely eject  themselves so nobody was killed in this  incident but 1.4 million dollars was a  huge loss anyways before moving on I've  got a small request for you just  subscribe to the channel and you'll win  a lottery ticket soon number 10 the  Titanic sink cost 200 million dollars  the many experts in 1912 who considered  the Titanic unsinkable were to be proven  wrong on  boats maiden voyage from Southampton to  New York City the ship was designed to  withstand head-on collisions and ramming  from other ships however the North  Atlantic Ocean iceberg that took down  the vessel scraped through five of its  16 watertight compartments the Titanic's  lifeboats similar to other systems at  the time were designed to Shepherd  passengers to nearby rescue ships not  take them to shore unfortunately help  was many hours away and the boat was  gradually going under the crew  organization caused many lifeboats to  leave the ship at far less than full  capacity plus they only had enough boats  for about a third of the people on board  as a result more than 1500 people died  either on the ship or in the icy waters  waiting for help  number nine Exxon Valdez crash cost four  point four billion dollars a drunk  driver caused the worst oil spill the US  has ever seen  in 1989 the Exxon Valdez oil spill  occurred when Captain Joe Hazelwood  crashed the oil tanker into the Prince  William Sound  Hazelwood was later convicted of  operating the tanker while under the  influence of alcohol and negligent  discharge of oil eleven million gallons  of oil were spilled in the accident  affecting 1300 miles of Alaskan coast  wildlife was threatened in industries  like fishing were severely impacted the  cost of cleaning up the spill paying  fines and dealing with the legal action  added up to 4.4 billion dollars number  eight Challenger explosion cost five  point five billion dollars On January  28th 1986 the space shuttle Challenger  was scheduled to take off it was  supposed to be the challengers last  flight and the mission included  scientific objectives and satellite  deployments unfortunately unpredicted  temperatures caused a tragic malfunction  frosty temperatures the night before the  launch caused rubber parts in the rocket  boosters to freeze the frozen parts  didn't seal the way they were supposed  to and the Challenger exploded killing  the seven astronauts on board the space  shuttle had never been tested at  temperatures that cold and sadly this  oversight led to seven lives and  billions of dollars being lost number  seven sinking of prestige cost six point  nine billion dollars despite its  illustrious name by 2002 the prestige  was a  down oil tanker with 26 years of  transport work under its enormous belt  while carrying 77 thousand metric tons  of oil the prestige got caught in a  storm off the coast of Spain the ship  took on water causing engines to shut  down as the ship leaked oil into the  ocean the crew was evacuated after  several days of debate and delayed the  ship was finally brought into harbor in  Spain the ecological damage cleanups and  legal fees cost six point nine billion  dollars if the ship had been better  maintained it likely would have  withstood the storm and the oil spill  would have never happened number six the  Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster cost  twelve billion dollars Fukushima Daiichi  was a nuclear power plant on the coast  of Japan that unfortunately gained  worldwide notoriety in March of 2011 an  earthquake caused the reactors at the  plant to shut down but it also caused a  tsunami the tsunami shut down the plants  backup generator preventing the  necessary cooling process from taking  place  following this unfortunate chain of  events three nuclear reactors melted  down and hydrogen explosions released  dangerous radiation into the air a 2012  investigation found that all of these  events were totally preventable  unfortunately guidelines for the plants  necessary maintenance had been ignored  and disaster struck at Fukushima number  five Colombia disintegrated on re-entry  cost thirteen billion dollars the space  shuttle Columbia crash of 2003 will  sadly go down in history as another  spacecraft accident that should never  have happened  the shuttle was torn apart upon  re-entering the Earth's atmosphere  because of a piece of foam that fell  from the shuttles external tank  breaching its wing all seven astronauts  on board Columbia were killed when  Columbia took off sixteen days prior a  similar issue with falling foam had  taken place but nothing was done to  correct the problem this tragic incident  led to the whole NASA space shuttle  fleet being retired in 2011 and NASA  bore tremendous public scrutiny for not  taking precautions to secure the foam on  the shuttles tank the loss cost thirteen  billion dollars number four  mercedes-benz buys Chrysler cost twenty  billion dollars mercedes-benz parent  company Daimler Benz merged with  Chrysler in 1998 and ten  transforming the two companies into one  international automobile powerhouse  known as Daimler Chrysler with one  branch in the US and the other in Europe  the company hoped to dominate the car  market on both continents Daimler Benz  paid 37 billion dollars for Chrysler but  unfortunately the deal didn't stand the  test of time due to cultural clashes and  differences in quality the two companies  struggled to see eye-to-eye then in the  2000s a recession caused Chrysler's  sales to vanish Daimler Benz ultimately  sold Chrysler in 2007 for seven billion  dollars to Cerberus Capital Management  firm a company whose specialty is  restructuring failing corporations  number three the Deepwater Horizon oil  spill cost 61 billion dollars the  Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf  of Mexico is considered to be the worst  oil spill in history 210 million gallons  of oil were spilled following an  explosion on the drilling rig oil  threatened marine and wildlife habitats  from Louisiana to Florida and the spill  continued for months as workers  attempted time and again to stop the  flow of oil ultimately an investigation  revealed that BP the British company  responsible for the Deepwater Horizon  rig had cut corners on safety with  disastrous results cutting corners  turned out to be very costly for BP  cleaning up after the disaster and pain  associated fines and legal fees has  stuck the company with a 61 billion  dollar bill number two  AOL buys Time Warner cost 146 billion  dollars this is the biggest corporate  merger mistake ever in the year 2000 the  dot-com bubble was at its peak  AOL was regarded as the top-notch tech  company in the world and the Time Warner  deal was hyped to the max AOL paid 182  billion to buy Time Warner adding Time  Warner Cable packages to their popular  home internet offerings just a few  months later the dot-com started showing  it's real worth causing aol's value to  decline rapidly in 2009 Time Warner  struck out on its own with a valuation  of 36 billion dollars later AOL's value  dropped to just 2 point 5  billion dollars the reality of AOL  changed in less than nine years everyone  thought that their reign as the leading  home internet service would never end  yet just a few short years proved them  very very wrong so the worst most  expensive mistake in history is number  one the Chernobyl disaster cost five  hundred ninety billion dollars the  Chernobyl accident in 1986 was the  result of a flawed reactor design that  was operated with inadequately trained  personnel the resulting steam explosion  and fires released at least five percent  of the radioactive reactor core into the  environment with the deposition of  radioactive materials in many parts of  Europe to Chernobyl plant workers died  due to the explosion on the night of the  accident and a further 28 people died  within a few weeks as a result of acute  radiation syndrome the United Nations  Scientific Committee on the effects of  atomic radiation has concluded that  apart from some 6500 thyroid cancers  there is no evidence of a major public  health impact attributable to radiation  exposure twenty years after the accident  some 350,000 people were evacuated as a  result of the accident but resettlement  of areas from which people were  relocated is ongoing it was the worst  most deadly nuclear accident of all time  the worst part is it occurred due to  some totally preventable mistakes design  flaws and that reactor caused the  terrible incident and irreparable damage  occurred that's all for now guys please  like subscribe and hit the notification  bell icon because in my next article I'm  coming with how des buys oil tycoons  spend their billions so stay tuned for  lots more exciting stuff