tombstone engineering
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.14 in modern English
26
Scrabble Score
20
Letters
4
Syllables
10
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
The practice of letting accidents or failures (perhaps occasioning death, but not necessarily) identify engineering problems.
Slang; Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "“As pilots in the USAF, we used the term ‘Tombstone Engineering’ to describe a known potential catastrophic flight event that could have been avoided through additional design and funding, but ended in the death of pilots and/or aircrews, thus forcing that design change/aircraft modification. Emergency procedures, especially the warnings, in our flight manuals are literally written in blood…,” Coffindaffer said."