Cascading Failures‏....

http://www.salon.com/wires/allwires/2010/11/18/D9JIJ12G0_us_superjumbo_woes_cockpit_drama/index.html

pilots were inundated with 54 computer messages alerting them of system failures or impending failures.

With only about eight to 10 messages able to fit on a computer screen, pilots watched as screens filled only to be replaced by new screenfuls of warnings.

"There is probably a one in 100 million chance to have all that go wrong."
half of the 80 Rolls-Royce engines that power A380s, the world's largest jetliners, may need to be replaced (Why do they need to replace all the engines if it is a 1 in hundred million chance)

the picture emerging of the pilots' struggle to save the plane and its passengers has also raised questions about facets of the plane's design (Outsoursed to India)

Airplanes are supposed to be designed with redundancy so that if one part or system fails, there is still another to perform the same function. That didn't always happen in this case (They haven’t taught redundency in the slums of Calcutta)

The shrapnel sliced electric cables and hydraulic lines in the wing. The wing's forward spar -- one of the beams that attaches the wing to the plane -- was damaged as well. And the wing's two fuel tanks were punctured. As fuel leaked out, a growing imbalance was created between the left and right sides of the plane,

The electrical power problems prevented pilots from pumping fuel from tanks in the tail to tanks farther forward, he said. Gradually the plane became tail heavy and the aircraft's center of gravity began to moveIf a plane gets too far out of balance, it will stall and crash.