[bewaretheirs]

Something similar was at work in the 2018 natural gas explosions in and around Andover, MA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merrimack_Valley_gas_explosion...

"According to the NTSB's preliminary report, customers in the accident area received gas from a low-pressure (0.5 psi) distribution network which, in turn, was fed from a high-pressure (75 psi) main pipeline via regulators controlled by sensors measuring pressure in the low-pressure pipes. At the time of the accident, workers were replacing some of the low-pressure piping, but the procedure set out by Columbia Gas for doing this failed to include transfer of a regulator's pressure sensor from the old, disused piping to the new. As a result, when the old pipe was depressurized, the regulator sensed zero pressure on the low-pressure side and opened completely, feeding the main pipeline's full pressure into the local distribution network."

[mindslight]

If you're just talking about when something in a feedback loop gets disconnected (causing the output of the error amplifier to go to an extreme), you can do this with cruise control and a manual transmission (at least on some cars). Engage cruise control on the highway, then pop the car out of gear without using the clutch (so cruise control doesn't disengage). As the car's speed drops, the cruise control applies ever more throttle making the RPM shoot up. I've also done this going downhill with the car naturally gaining speed (and RPM going to idle).

[bewaretheirs]

Huh. I've owned a few manual-transmission cars over the years and they all disallowed this trick -- pressing the clutch would disengage cruise control just like a tap on the brakes.

[echoangle]

Interesting that they only had a single regulator, if overpressure is that dangerous, I would expect them to have multiple regulators in sequence or a blowout valve to dump excess pressure.

[t0mas88]

Indeed. Not having a mechanical blow out set a bit above the never exceed pressure sounds like a design fault.

[neaanopri]

After the accident, the Massachusetts legislature passed a law to require a licensed professional engineers stamp on all gas infrastructure designs of this type

[lazide]

That will be in the postmortem I’m sure.

In the mean time, that costs money, and since no one managed to kill people by being dumb in this particular way before….