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Miami Pedestrian Bridge, Part XIII 81

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JAE

JAE

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Jun 27, 2000
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A continuation of our discussion of this failure. Best to read the other threads first to avoid rehashing things already discussed.

Part I
thread815-436595

Part II
thread815-436699

Part III
thread815-436802

Part IV
thread815-436924

Part V
thread815-437029

Part VI
thread815-438451

Part VII
thread815-438966

Part VIII
thread815-440072

Part IX
thread815-451175

Part X
thread815-454618

Part XI
thread815-454998

Part XII
thread815-455746


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The more I think about the companies involved trying to delay the NTSB releases the more it bothers me. How despicable. Clearly they were trying to limit financial impacts from a settlement by those actions. Innocent people are dead because several companies failed to construct that bridge safely and they try to pull that? Ridiculous.
 
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So are all the great and insightful opinions and ideas expressed here now to be considered "redundant"?
I hope not.
Thank you for the link. It is a good read.
I see only two recommendations for FIGG: Train staff on how to use Pc and hire a qualified firm for peer review.
They forgot to recommend they should pay attention.

 
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So besides the lawyers and insurers having a field day with proportioning monetary payouts:

1) what will Florida Board of Professional Engineers do with the EoR's license; and

2) will the Florida State Attorney's office proceed with criminal conviction/s in the case?​
 
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I joined in order to give a big Thank You to the contributors of these threads!
I'm a highway engineer that has managed and been EOR on large transportation projects in South Florida that also include many with Category 2 structures.
I've been following the discussion and avoided saying anything since shortly after the collapse.
I've not posted because as a Florida PE, I didn't think it appropriate until after the NTSB meeting.

In short, I want to say that I'm really impressed with the NTSB investigation and how they have unraveled the web of responsibility in this disaster.
I give them an A+ on their investigation, findings and recommendations.
They have clearly recognized that this was not just a design error but a systemic failure.
The inherent checks in projects like these should never allow a design error to progress to this disastrous loss of life.
It should be a textbook case study on what happens when everyone thinks it's OK to cut a corner because someone else in the chain is paying attention and will catch any problems.

I know how these projects are developed, managed and constructed. It appears that this project was too small for the major players to get the attention quick enough and with enough attention when things started unraveling to stop a disaster leading to the death of 6 people.

I encourage young engineers to read the NTSB documents including the analysis documents on their docket. This project is a life lesson that will help you for the rest of your career.

I was really impressed with the response and inquisitiveness on these threads to solve the structural deficiency question from the beginning. Within a short time it was obvious there were design deficiencies contributing to the collapse. The NTSB release has cleared up the remaining questions and I won't repeat them here in this post.

As a highway engineer, this disaster has been quite haunting. It represents the worst nightmare of a design professional. I still remember standing in my kitchen that afternoon, with tears in my eyes, watching the live shots on TV of the rescue workers trying to do something, anything to help the victims but 950 tons of concrete and steel can be a cruel mistress. Most of us become engineers because we have the natural technical and math skills to design and build things. Then we discover how we can help others with what we can do and have not just a career but a calling. Don't forget that calling and don't cut corners. The protection of public welfare is our most important mandate.

I'll leave it there for now. It's been tough keeping things bottled up for 19 months and I really feel bad for the professionals involved in this catastrophe. In addition to the burden of 6 deaths, they will now have to look at what the Florida PE Board does and the potential for criminal charges. It's a very sad day.
 
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Well the NTSB haven't held back - I think they've really gone for FIGG myself. e.g. finding 8 - FIGG... made significant design errors..."

Later " failure of the FIGG EOR to identify the significance of the structural cracking observed..."

The heat map for words includes:
Unique,
Non redundancy (lack of redundancy) - so puts that one to bed
Concrete truss complex design
Underestimate (loads)
Overestimate (capacity
Error

Pretty damning to me.

I also think this forum worked well and apart from the odd nutter who we managed to get rid off quite quickly, fairly rapidly came to the same conclusion. I've no idea if anyone from NTSB or any other party read this forum and don't comment, but if they did I hope it was useful to see what others were thinking of.


Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.
 
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LittleInch said:
Well the NTSB haven't held back - I think they've really gone for FIGG myself.
Click to expand...
Yeah, they also were not impressed with Figg's criticism of their findings, as outlined in their submission.
This could merit a topic in the 'Professional Ethics in Engineering' forum.

Brad Waybright

It's all okay as long as it's okay.
 
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Ingenuity said:
So besides the lawyers and insurers having a field day with proportioning monetary payouts:

1) what will Florida Board of Professional Engineers do with the EoR's license; and

2) will the Florida State Attorney's office proceed with criminal conviction/s in the case?
Click to expand...

The closest incident I can reference is the Hyatt Regency Walkway Collapse. Loss of life and injury much higher, but cause of the collapse centered around design error. The EOR had his licenses revoked by all the states he was registered in at the time. Criminal charges we're also filed, but were later dropped. The EOR's company also lost its license to practice.

I am curious to see if criminal charges, if filed, will be dropped. Clearly the EOR did not intentionally design something to kill/injure people, but, unlike the Hyatt Regency Walway Collapse, this was not an immediate failure. The structure gave adequate warning to avoid catastrophic lose of life and injury which the EOR did not heed. That would be the crux of the criminal argument in my mind.
 
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5Hiway.1 (Civil/Environmental)23 Oct 19 02:40
samwise753 (Structural

Last week I called the Florida Board of Professional Engineers to find out if there has been any COMPLAINTS against the EOR that signed and sealed the plans. I was told that officially there is none but that they can not say anything until there is a judgement of probable cause by the board. So, somebody or nobody have officially issue a complaint. Nobody knows. There is a meeting of the probable cause Commitee this upcoming month. Let's see what happens. Until now the EOR is a PE in Florida (and many other states) and free to sign and seal plans. It is what it is.

Now, the question is who is going to stick their neck out (or has already done)and file a COMPLAINT (if one is deserved)? But it has to be one that can not be label "with an ax to grind" ...

BTW. Take a look at the FDOT registry of Qualified Engineering Companies and look for Figg Bridge Engineers.. Also, in your state... Any difference...

Also, BTW, I do not trust the justice system in South Florida to investigate. Look at the Epstein case...


 
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The workers at the Hyatt were told to stop using the walkways to wheel-barrow material across during construction. I think that was significant warning. The EORs lost their licenses largely because, in a review of the rest of their work, it turned out it was shoddy; the walkway, as-designed, would have been fine for the application though there was also some negligence in following up with the fabricator (they were sued out of existence for their substitution) over the suggested changes.
 
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I was thinking the state boards were able to initiate action even if nobody actually filed a complaint with them. I wouldn't expect them to be giving out information ahead of time, regardless.
Figg and others can make all kinds of arguments about how the design was good, etc., but after the bridge falls, it's a really uphill battle to promote that kind of idea. The lack of roughening being the cause of the failure strikes me as an awfully weak argument, too.
Past observation is that the state boards don't always act like I'd expect/want them to. Some things that seem relatively minor to me, they really come down on, other things I think they ought to jump on, they give a slap on the wrist. That said, I'm not sure what the appropriate action would be anyway. With a very high profile case and multiple fatalities, I would think they would lean towards the more severe rather than less severe.
 
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3DDave said:
...the walkway, as-designed, would have been fine for the application...
Click to expand...

Not according to Edward Phrang of the NSB who lead the investigation. He indicated that even without the change in rod hangers, the original design had "problems" and would not check out in calculations or in their lab testing of the rod-to-tube connections. (per my attendance at a long talk he gave on the disaster in about 1985 or so).



 
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3DDave said:
The workers at the Hyatt were told to stop using the walkways to wheel-barrow material across during construction. I think that was significant warning. The EORs lost their licenses largely because, in a review of the rest of their work, it turned out it was shoddy; the walkway, as-designed, would have been fine for the application though there was also some negligence in following up with the fabricator (they were sued out of existence for their substitution) over the suggested changes.
Click to expand...

Did not know that about the wheel barrows; definitely a warning. As far as design oversight, I had thought it was still up to (and found to be so) the EOR to validate the fabricator's substitution, and, even without the substitution, the EOR had underestimated the design pedestrian load by 40%. The correlation is both EOR's missed on a critical design element.

JStephen said:
I was thinking the state boards were able to initiate action even if nobody actually filed a complaint with them. I wouldn't expect them to be giving out information ahead of time, regardless.
Figg and others....
Click to expand...

I definitely don't think a complaint needs to be filed for the licensing boards to take action. And your second sentence nails it; a working design on paper doesn't mean much if it failed catastrophically once built.
 
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