Summary
WASHINGTON (AP) - Steel plates connecting steel beams in the Interstate 35-W bridge in Minneapolis were too thin by half and fractured, "the critical factor" in the collapse that killed 13 people and injured 145, the National Transportation Safety Board said Tuesday.
The connectors, called gusset plates, were roughly half the 1- inch thickness they should have been because of a design error, NTSB Chairman Mark Rosenker said. Investigators found 16 fractured gusset plates from the bridge's center span.See the full content of this document
Extract
Design Flaw Led to Bridge Collapse
"It is the undersizing of the design which we believe is the critical factor here. It is the critical factor that began the process of this collapse. That's what failed," Rosenker said at a news conference.
What caused the br...See the full content of this document
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