Where are the Missing Bullet Holes?

What WWII aircraft can teach us about risk, reform, and silent failures in community schemes

During the Second World War, the Allied forces carefully studied bullet holes on fighter planes returning from combat. Red dots on diagrams marked where these planes had been hit the most — the wings, the tail, the fuselage. The first instinct was simple: reinforce those areas that have bullet holes.

But a statistician named Abraham Wald saw what others …