"The key to this accident is that there was a common-mode failure"
Hmmmm. Does anyone know if any fuel related devices share any of the electronics, eg data bus, earth wires or whatever..?
My car uses a system called VANBus (Vehicle Area Network Bus) which is designed to save on cabling and thus cost...basically, all devices in the car are connected to this bus system and can talk to each other. It enables things like the speedo to talk to the radio so the volume gets adjusted as the speed increases...the wipers speed up and slow down automagically as well, depending on rain levels/road speed. The heater can talk to the headlights if it wants and the interior light to the engine management system if it wanted to. Well, you get the idea.
The major disadvantages is that a fault on the VANBus can cause all sorts of odd problems. One dodgy wire and the whole lot goes boof!
Aditionally, if a device on the VANBus starts sending out spurious data it can cause another device to mis-behave despite it being fully functional and apparently not related...