We did a tour of a nuclear facility & 3 Mile Island was brought up. The operator stated that when the incident started, the system was in the process of shutting down but the operators couldn’t believe what they were seeing so they interrupted the shutdown process creating the disaster. If they had allowed the process to complete, we’d have never heard about it.
I’m pretty sure I heard that from my friend’s parents, too. They were (and are) some of the truly most intelligent people I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. I respect them very much.