Study failure

Let’s take it back to 1943 in World War II. The US Military are suffering severe losses of their bomber fleet from German air defence. When examining the damaged aircraft, the Americans conclude that armour needed to be added to the areas of the plane that were most hit.

Enter Abraham Wald. Wald was a member of the Statistical Research Group (SRG) at Columbia University where he applied his statistical know-how to military problems. He proved that the US Military reached the wrong conclusion…

The military were only considering aircraft that had survived the missions and returned home. Aircraft that were shot down weren’t able able to be studied and thus ignored. He argued that armour must be added to the least hit areas of the aircraft instead.