The
Hyatt Regency hotel walkway collapse was a major disaster that occurred on July 17, 1981 in
Kansas CityKansas City is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties. It is one of two county seats of Jackson County, the other being Independence, just to the city's east...
, Missouri, United States, killing 114 people and injuring more than 200 others during a
tea danceA tea dance, or thé dansant is an afternoon or early-evening dance. The function evolved from the concept of the afternoon tea, and traces its origin back to the French colonization of Morocco. Books on Victorian Era etiquette even included instructions for hosting such gatherings...
. At the time it was the deadliest structural collapse in U.S. history.
Background
Construction on the 40-story
Hyatt Regency Crown CenterThe Hyatt Regency Crown Center is a , 40-story Global Hyatt hotel in the Crown Center complex in Kansas City, Missouri that is topped by a revolving restaurant known as Skies.It opened in July 1, 1980 as the Hyatt Regency Kansas City....
began in 1978, and the hotel opened in July 1, 1980 after construction delays including an incident on October 14, 1979, when of the atrium roof collapsed because one of the roof connections on the north end of the atrium failed.
The building was part of a master plan devised by
Edward Larrabee BarnesEdward Larrabee Barnes was a prolific American architect.Barnes was a Harvard graduate and over the years taught variously at Harvard, the Pratt Institute, and the University of Virginia...
and specifically designed by the newly created architect firm PBNDML. It was Missouri's tallest building.
The collapse was the second major
structural failureStructural failure refers to loss of the load-carrying capacity of a component or member within a structure or of the structure itself. Structural failure is initiated when the material is stressed to its strength limit, thus causing fracture or excessive deformations. The ultimate failure strength...
in Kansas City in a little more than two years. On June 4, 1979, the roof of the then-empty
Kemper ArenaKemper Arena American Royal Center is a 19,500 seat indoor arena in Kansas City, Missouri, USA, that has hosted NCAA Final Four basketball games, professional basketball and hockey teams, the 1976 Republican National Convention, a 1976 Paul McCartney & Wings concert, and is the ongoing host of the...
in Kansas City had collapsed without loss of life. The architects and engineering firms at the two collapses were different.
One of the defining features of the hotel was its lobby, which featured a multistory
atriumIn modern architecture, an atrium is a large open space, often several stories high and having a glazed roof and/or large windows, often situated within an office building and usually located immediately beyond the main entrance doors...
crossed by suspended concrete walkways on the second, third, and fourth levels, with the fourth level walkway directly above the second level walkway.
Disaster
On July 17, 1981, approximately 2,000 people had gathered in the atrium to participate in and watch a dance
contestA contest is an event in which two or more individuals or teams engage in competition against each other, often for a prize or similar incentive.Contest may also refer to:Literature* Contest , by Matthew ReillyPlaces...
. Dozens stood on the walkways. At 7:05 PM, the walkways on the second, third, and fourth floor were packed with visitors as they watched over the active lobby, which was also full of people. The fourth floor bridge was suspended directly over the second floor bridge, with the third floor walkway set off to the side several meters away from the other two. Construction issues led to a subtle but flawed design change that doubled the load on the connection between the fourth floor walkway support
beamsA beam is a structural element that is capable of withstanding load primarily by resisting bending. The bending force induced into the material of the beam as a result of the external loads, own weight and external reactions to these loads is called a bending moment.- Overview :Beams generally...
and the
tie rodA tie rod is a slender structural unit used as a tie and capable of carrying tensile loads only.- Subtypes and examples of applications :* In airplane structures, tie rods are sometimes used in the fuselage or wings....
s carrying the weight of both walkways. This new design could barely handle the
dead loadIn mechanical and structural engineering, live loads and dead loads are two kinds of forces exerted on an object. The concepts are used especially where analysis of real-world objects is required...
weight of the structure itself, much less the weight of the spectators standing on it. The connection failed and both walkways crashed one on top of the other and then into the lobby below, killing 114 people and injuring more than 200 others.
Investigation
Three days after the disaster, Wayne Lischka, a
structural engineerStructural engineering is a field of engineering dealing with the analysis and design of structures that support or resist loads. Structural engineering is usually considered a specialty within civil engineering, but it can also be studied in its own right....
hired by
The Kansas City StarThe Kansas City Star is a McClatchy newspaper based in Kansas City, Missouri, in the United States. Published since 1880, the paper is the recipient of eight Pulitzer Prizes...
newspaperA newspaper is a publication containing news, information, and advertising. General-interest newspapers often feature articles on political events, crime, business, art/entertainment, society and sports. Most traditional papers also feature an editorial page containing columns that express the...
, discovered a significant change in the design of the walkways. Coverage of the event later earned the
Star and its sister publication the
Kansas City TimesThe Kansas City Times was a morning newspaper in Kansas City, Missouri, from 1867 to 1990.While the morning Kansas City Times under ownership of afternoon The Kansas City Star won 2 Pulitzer Prizes and was actually bigger than its parent when its name was changed to the Star.-John Newman Edwards...
a
Pulitzer PrizeThe Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by Hungarian-American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City....
for local news reporting in 1982.
The two walkways were suspended from a set of
steelStructural steel is steel construction material, a profile, formed with a specific shape or cross section and certain standards of chemical composition and strength...
tie rodA tie rod is a slender structural unit used as a tie and capable of carrying tensile loads only.- Subtypes and examples of applications :* In airplane structures, tie rods are sometimes used in the fuselage or wings....
s, with the second floor walkway hanging directly underneath the fourth floor walkway. The walkway platform was supported on 3 cross-beams suspended by steel rods retained by
nutA nut is a type of hardware fastener with a threaded hole. Nuts are almost always used opposite a mating bolt to fasten a stack of parts together. The two partners are kept together by a combination of their threads' friction, a slight stretch of the bolt, and compression of the parts...
s. The cross-beams were
box beamA box or tubular girder is a girder that forms an enclosed tube with multiple walls, rather than an I or H beam. Originally constructed of riveted wrought iron, they are now found in rolled or welded steel, aluminium extrusions or pre-stressed concrete....
s made from C-channels welded toe-to-toe. The original design by Jack D. Gillum and Associates called for three pairs of rods running from the second floor all the way to the ceiling. Investigators eventually determined that this design supported only 60 percent of the minimum load required by Kansas City
building codeA building code, or building control, is a set of rules that specify the minimum acceptable level of safety for constructed objects such as buildings and nonbuilding structures. The main purpose of the building codes is to protect public health, safety and general welfare as they relate to the...
s.
Havens Steel Company, the contractor responsible for manufacturing the rods, objected to the original plan of Jack D. Gillum and Associates, since it required the whole of the rod below the fourth floor to be
threadedA screw thread is a helical structure used to convert between rotational and linear movement or force.A screw thread may be thought of as an inclined plane wrapped around a cylinder or cone...
in order to screw on the nuts to hold the fourth floor walkway in place. These threads would probably have been damaged beyond use as the structure for the fourth floor was hoisted into position. Havens therefore proposed an alternate plan in which two separate sets of tie rods would be used: one connecting the fourth floor walkway to the ceiling, and the other connecting the second floor walkway to the fourth floor walkway.
This design change would prove fatal. In the original design, the beams of the fourth floor walkway had to support only the weight of the fourth floor walkway itself, with the weight of the second floor walkway supported completely by the rods. In the revised design, however, the fourth floor beams were required to support both the fourth floor walkway and the second floor walkway hanging from it. With the load on the fourth-floor beams doubled, Havens' proposed design could bear only 30 percent of the mandated minimum load.
The serious flaws of the revised design were further compounded by the fact that both designs placed the bolts directly in a welded joint between two facing C-channels, the weakest structural point in the box beams. Photographs of the wreckage show excessive deformations of the cross-section. In the failure the box beams split at the weld and the nut supporting them slipped through.
Investigators concluded that the basic problem was a lack of proper communication between Jack D. Gillum and Associates and Havens Steel. In particular, the drawings prepared by Jack D. Gillum and Associates were only preliminary sketches but were interpreted by Havens as finalized drawings. Jack D. Gillum and Associates failed to review the initial design thoroughly, and accepted Havens' proposed plan without performing basic calculations that would have revealed its serious intrinsic flaws — in particular, the doubling of the load on the fourth-floor beams.
Aftermath
The Missouri Board of Architects, Professional Engineers, and Land Surveyors convicted the engineers employed by Jack D. Gillum and Associates who had signed off on the final drawings of gross negligence, misconduct, and unprofessional conduct in the practice of engineering; they all lost their
engineering licenseProfessional Engineer is the term for registered or licensed engineers in some countries who are permitted to offer their professional services directly to the public....
s in the states of Missouri and Texas and their membership to ASCE. While Jack D. Gillum and Associates itself was cleared of
criminal negligenceIn the criminal law, criminal negligence is one of the three general classes of mens rea element required to constitute a conventional as opposed to strict liability offense. It is defined as:-Discussion:...
, it was stripped of its license to be an engineering firm.
At least $140 million was awarded to victims and their families in both judgments and settlements in subsequent
civil lawCivil law, as opposed to criminal law, is the branch of law dealing with disputes between individuals and/or organizations, in which compensation may be awarded to the victim...
suits; a large amount of this money came from Crown Center Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of
Hallmark CardsHallmark Cards is a privately owned American company based in Kansas City, Missouri. Founded in 1910 by Joyce C. Hall, Hallmark is the largest manufacturer of greeting cards in the United States. Approximately 50% of greeting cards sent in the United States every year are manufactured by Hallmark...
which was the owner of the actual hotel franchise (like most hoteliers, Hyatt runs on the franchisor/franchisee system). Life and health insurance companies probably absorbed even larger uncompensated losses in policy payouts.
The Hyatt tragedy remains a classic model for the study of engineering ethics and errors. Gillum's chief engineer continues to share his experiences with others, in the hope that the mistakes which led to the Hyatt disaster will not be repeated.
After the disaster, the lobby was reconstructed with only one crossing on the second floor. Unlike the previous walkways, the new bridge is supported by several columns underneath it rather than being suspended from the ceiling. As a result, some floors of the hotel now have disconnected sections on opposite sides of the atrium, so it is necessary to go to the second floor to get to the other side.
The hotel later reopened, and has been renamed Hyatt Regency
Crown CenterCrown Center is a commercial complex and neighborhood located near Downtown Kansas City, Missouri located between Gillham Road and Grand Boulevard to the east and west, and between Pershing Boulevard and Union Hill to the north and south. It is anchored by Halls, a shopping and entertainment...
. It has since been renovated and now serves as one of the city's most luxurious hotels.
Memorial
The accident is not marked in any way in the hotel. In 2008 the Skywalk Memorial Foundation announced a fundraising drive to build a garden and a fountain in Washington Square Park, about a block from the hotel commemorating the event. Hallmark had pledged $25,000 and the city has offered $200,000. A Korean War memorial is now planned for the park and in May 2009 city officials said they were considering locating the memorial in
Hospital HillHospital Hill is a neighborhood in Kansas City, Missouri. The neighborhood is located between 22nd Street to 25th Street and Gillham Road to Troost Avenue. This name reflects not only the geography on which the buildings rest, but also a history of public hospitals on the same site dating back to...
Park at 22nd Street and
Gillham RoadGillham Road is a major north/south main street that runs in Kansas City, Missouri from 22nd Street to 46th Street. Gillham Road becomes Gillham Plaza from 31st Street to 34th Street. This causes Gillham Road to go over one block east into a residential neighborhood...
.
See also
- Structural failure
Structural failure refers to loss of the load-carrying capacity of a component or member within a structure or of the structure itself. Structural failure is initiated when the material is stressed to its strength limit, thus causing fracture or excessive deformations. The ultimate failure strength...
- Kemper Arena
Kemper Arena American Royal Center is a 19,500 seat indoor arena in Kansas City, Missouri, USA, that has hosted NCAA Final Four basketball games, professional basketball and hockey teams, the 1976 Republican National Convention, a 1976 Paul McCartney & Wings concert, and is the ongoing host of the...
- National Geographic Seconds From Disaster
Seconds from Disaster is a documentary television series that aired from July 6, 2004 to March 7, 2007 on the National Geographic Channel. The program investigates historically relevant man-made and natural disasters...
episode Skywalk Collapse
- List of structural failures and collapses
Further reading
- Marshall, Richard D., [et al.]. Investigation of the Kansas City Hyatt Regency walkways collapse, U.S. Dept. of Commerce, National Bureau of Standards, 1982.
External links