Free Republic

The last time the National Transportation Safety Board came down hard on engineering and construction was in 2007. That year, the board delivered reports on the collapse of the I-35 Highway Bridge in Minneapolis that killed 13 people, and on a ceiling collapse in a Boston Central Artery tunnel that killed one motorist. Both involved completed structures. With its final investigation findings, the board also made recommendations for new standards and procedures and quality control. NTSB's report on last year’s Miami bridge collapse at Florida International University in mid-construction, which killed five motorists and one construction worker, has similar recommendations....

A bridge-building disaster should be incomprehensible in today’s technical world. Humans have been building bridges for centuries. The science should be well sorted out by now — and for the most part, it is. But the National Transportation Safety Board’s investigation of the March 2018 collapse of the FIU pedestrian bridge highlighted basic design flaws and a complete lack of oversight by every single party that had responsibility to either identify the design errors or stop work once it was clear that there was a massive internal failure. We all know “what happened” here. But the “why” is more elusive....