I don’t know the context of her word usage but her job is a position and the situation is such that the use of shear in its engineering meaning may have been intended. Like shear force, shear load, failure in shear, etc. Since we’re dealing with a bridge being structurally destroyed that meaning may have been appropriate.
By the way, the clearly competent NTSB chair, while a Democrat, was appointed to the NTSB by Trump who obviously named her because of her competence and not because of politics. She was then later promoted to be the NTSB chairman position during the Biden Administration.
great point - yes I sincerely appreciate that she is sitting in the chair of the NTSB for such a time as this !
side note:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leave_the_World_Behind_(film)
I have heard chatter that this exact or very similar scenario happened in this film ?
I have not seen the film but I defer to those who have - just curious