Software errors killing people with excessive radiation doses.
It’s related to why memes exist.
If you want recent one, 737 MAX, killed way more than Therac-25. Although it was as much fault of software as suits around it wanting to save a penny on training, because if pilots knew about how it exactly worked they could've circumvented it
To the credit of systems engineers, I can't think of a recent high profile fatal accident that could be reasonably blamed primarily on software, but that's not so much because software is infallible, but because systems are designed to fail safe.
I’m sure I read that
There was a bug that caused the AOA DISAGREE alert on the EICAS not to be displayed, because at some point someone misunderstood the requirement that the AOA indicator should be hidden if they didn't pay for the upgrade, but this was just an indication and wouldn't have affected control at all (though likely would have hinted the pilots to a more appropriate cause of action).
One could also consider the lack of cross-checking between the two flight computers and associated AOA sensors to be a bug, but that was how the system was intentionally designed, because AOA wasn't considered a flight-critical measurement in the system's safety assessment, so they didn't consider this required. A holistic safety analysis was never really done inclusive of MCAS though, and this requirement probably just followed on from 737NG and wasn't really considered (at least thoughtfully...) in MCAS' design.
* each flight computer used its own angle of attack sensor with no way to detect failure. Craft had 2 sensors, but they were not used together (apparently that was extra paid option...) * pilots didn't know how the system worked or when it is active, so they were fighting against it
don't remember anything about overflow
Or perhaps this failure settle the argument about whether or not physical lockouts were necessary and due to regulations you can no longer rely solely on software?
And it would have been entirely fine if there was electronic safeguards put between code and rest of the device, just like some stop lights have it (if control board sends green signal to both directions it fails out and doesn't allow that). Defense in depth and all that
https://engineered.network/causality/episode-39-therac-25/
Each episode focuses on a root cause analysis of a major engineering disaster. Presented in a dry but engaging way - he's a good presenter, but none of the "Radio Lab" style nonsense.
This is what enraged me about the Therac-25 design which ended up killing people. There's a whole report to read on the design, failure and follow up but to paraphrase the designers eliminated the physical locking mechanism and had this attitude that "oh it's electronic so it won't wear out and fail".