Hyatt Regency Hotel Walkway Collapse & 1979 DC-10 Crash Caroline Whitbeck, 9/94 Two famous accidents in the last decade, the 1979 DC-10 crash1 and the 1981 collapse of the walkway at the Kansas City Hyatt Regency, have dramatically illustrated that designs that may be safe if constructed or maintained as specified may, nonetheless, create hazards indirectly by creating temptations for others to take unsafe shortcuts. In these cases the unsafe shortcuts were in maintenance, fabrication of the connections, construction or production. Hyatt Regency Hotel Walkway Collapse On July 17, 1981, walkways in the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Kansas City, Missouri, collapsed leaving 114 dead and in over 200 injured. Many of the dead and injured were during had been attending a tea-dance party in the atrium lobby at the time of the accident. Some had been standing and dancing on the walkways that were suspended above the lobby floor at the levels of the second, third and fourth floors. Connections supporting the ceiling rods that held up the second and fourth-floor walkways failed. The fourth-floor walkway collapsed onto the second-floor walkway directly below. The third-floor walkway which was offset from the other two remained intact. It was the United States' most devastating structural failure in terms of injury and loss of life. During January and February, 1979, over a year before the collapse, the design of the walkway hanger rod connections had been changed by the Havens Steel Company which was the fabricator for the connections was working under a subcontract to Eldridge Construction Company, the general contractor on the Hyatt project. Gillum-Colaco, Inc. was the consulting structural engineering firm for the project and had subcontracted all structural engineering services for the project to Jack D. Gillum & Associates, Ltd. Jack D. Gillum was president of that firm and the professional engineer. Daniel M. Duncan was an associate in the firm and the project engineer. Havens changed the design from a one-rod to a two-rod system to simplify the assembly task, doubling the load on the connector. This excessive load ultimately resulted in the walkways collapse.2 However, even as originally designed, the walkways were barely capable of holding up the expected load, and would have failed to meet the requirements of the Kansas City Building Code.3 The fabricator, in sworn testimony before the administrative judicial hearings after the accident, claimed that his company telephoned the engineering firm Gillum-Colaco, Inc.Ñname later changed to G.C.E.Ñ for change approval. The engineering firm. denied ever receiving such a call from Havens.4 Yet, Jack D. Gillum, one of the principals of that firm, affixed his seal of approval to the revised engineering design drawings. On October 14, 1979, while the hotel was still under construction, more than 2700 square feet of the atrium roof had collapsed because one of the roof connections at the north end of the atrium failed.5 In testimony, the engineering firm. stated that on three separate occasions they requested on-site project representation to check all fabrication during the construction phase; however, the owner (Crown Center Redevelopment Corporation) was unwilling to incur the additional costs of providing on-site inspection.6 The 1979 Crash of an American Airlines DC-10 in Chicago The 1979 crash of a DC-10 occurred just after takeoff. The left engine had ripped off of its mounting just before liftoff. This was the worst disaster in U.S. aviation history. It should be distinguished from the 1974 Turkish Airlines DC-10 crash which was the worst crash in all aviation history. The 1979 crash was found to be a ten and a half inch crack in the rear bulkhead of the pylon that attaches the engine to the wing. The pylons of other DC-10s were found to have similar cracks. FAA investigation found the cracks to have been caused by improper maintenance procedures by maintenance crews at American Airlines and Continental Airlines. Instead of separating the engine and the pylons during maintenance, as was recommended by the manufacturer, McDonnell Douglas, the crews had been removing and reinstalling the engine and pylons as a unit. These heavy units were liable to me misaligned resulting in cracking of the rear bulkheadÕs flange. The shortcut saved an estimated 200 person hours per engine, however, a significant savings. The designs of comparable aircraft by competing airline manufacturers, Boeing and Lockheed, did not present the same temptations for unsafe maintenance. This accident and the comparison of the design of the DC- 10 with designs of competing aircraft helped to make aircraft designers aware of the ways in which designs may create of temptations to take unsafe shortcuts at other stages, as they had not been previously. Therefore, this case added a new element in evaluation of the safety of a design.7 _______________________________ 1 This crash, which was the worst disaster in United States aviation history, should not to be confused with the 1974 DC-10 crash which was the worst crash in all aviation history and was due to design problems that were more evident by the then current safety standards. 2Missouri Board for Architects, Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors vs.ÊDaniel M. Duncan, Jack D. Gillum and G.C.E. International, Inc., before the Administrative Hearing Commission, State of Missouri, Case No.ÊAR-84-0239, Statement of the Case, Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law and Decision rendered by Judge James B. Deutsch, November 14, 1985, pp. 54- 63. Case No. AR-84-0239 3Ibid., pp. 423-425. See also Pfrang, Edward O. and Richard Marshall, "Collapse of the Kansas City Hyatt Regency Walkways," Civil Engineering-ASCE, July 1982, pp. 65-68. This article contains the official findings and of the failure investigation conducted by the National Bureau of Standards, U.S. Department of Commerce. 4Administrative Hearing Commission, State of Missouri, Case No.ÊAR-84-0239, pp. 63-66. 5Ibid., p. 384. 6 The synopsis given here is primarily derived from W.M. Kim Roddis 1993 ÒStructural Failures and Engineering Ethics in the Journal of Structural Engineering ASCE. (May) and from the Hyatt Regency case in the case materials, Engineering Ethics, developed by C.E. Harris and Michael Rabins at Texas A&M under NSF grant #NSF Grant Number DIR-9012252 7For a fuller discussion of this case including complexities that there is not space to discuss here. Martin Curd and Larry May. 1984 Responsibility for Harmful Actions. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Co 16-21; Paul Eddy, Elaine Potter and Bruce Page, 1979 ÒIs the DC-10 a Lemon?Ó The New Republic (June 9): 7-9. For a discussion of the economic causes of design decisions that contributed to both DC-10 crashes (and other airline accidents) see, John Newhouse. 1982. ÒAReporter at Large: The Airlines Industry,Ó The New Yorker. (June 21) 46-93 and Newhouses book from which this piece was taken, The Sporty Game (NewYork: Alfred Knopf, Inc. 1982).