Hyatt Regency walkway collapse

Coordinates: 39.085°N 94.580°W



Original location of second- and fourth-story walkways

Date: July 17, 1981
Time: 19:05 CDT (UTC−5)
Location: Hyatt Regency Kansas City, 2345 McGee Street, Kansas City, Missouri 64108
Coordinates: 39.085°N 94.580°W
Cause: Structural overload resulting from design flaws
Deaths: 114
Non-fatal injuries: 216

On July 17, 1981, the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Kansas City, Missouri, suffered the structural collapse of two overhead walkways. Loaded with partygoers, the concrete and glass platforms cascaded down, crashing onto a tea dance in the lobby, killing 114 and injuring 216. Kansas City society was affected for years, with the collapse resulting in billions of dollars of insurance claims, legal investigations and city government reforms.

The Hyatt had been built just a few years before, during a nationwide pattern of fast-tracked large construction with reduced oversight and major failures. Its roof had partially collapsed during construction, and the ill-conceived skywalk design progressively degraded due to a miscommunication loop of corporate neglect and irresponsibility. An investigation concluded that it would have failed even under one-third of the weight it held that night. Convicted of gross negligence, misconduct and unprofessional conduct, the engineering company lost its national affiliation and all engineering licenses in four states, but was acquitted of criminal charges. Company owner and engineer of record Jack D. Gillum eventually claimed full responsibility for the collapse and its obvious but unchecked design flaws, and he became an engineering disaster lecturer.

The disaster contributed many lessons and reforms to engineering ethics and safety, and to emergency management. It was the deadliest non-deliberate structural failure since the collapse of Pemberton Mill over 120 years earlier, and remained the second deadliest structural collapse  in the United States until the collapse of the World Trade Center towers 20 years later.

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Legacy

The Hyatt Regency collapse remains the deadliest non-deliberate structural failure in American history, and it was the deadliest structural collapse in the U.S. until the collapse of the World Trade Center towers 20 years later. The world responded to the Hyatt disaster by upgrading the culture and academic curriculum of engineering ethics and emergency management. In this respect, the event joins the legacies of the 1984 Bhopal disaster, the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster and the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

The disaster provides a case study teaching first responders the "all-hazards approach" to multiple disciplines across jurisdictions, and teaching university students in engineering ethics classes how the smallest personal responsibility can impact the biggest projects with the worst possible results.

[The skywalk design] is one of the worst examples of people trying to push off their responsibilities to other parts of the team ... Since the Hyatt, there has been a lot of activity in the engineering profession to address quality, the final product and how you attain quality. The steps taken after the Hyatt helped the industry recover from failure.

— Paul Munger, chairman of the Missouri architectural board

The American Society of Civil Engineers adopted a clear policy—which carries weight in court—that structural engineers are now ultimately responsible for reviewing shop drawings by fabricators. Trade groups such as the ASCE issued investigations, improved standards of peer review, sponsored seminars and created trade manuals for the improvement of professional standards and public confidence. The Kansas City Codes Administration became its own department, doubling its staff and dedicating a single engineer comprehensively to all aspects of each reviewed building. Kansas City politics and government were colored for years with investigations against corruption. In 1983, the disaster was cited in the argument against the Reagan administration's attempt to eliminate an agency of the National Bureau of Standards.

The Kansas City Star and its associated publication the Kansas City Times won a Pulitzer Prize in 1982 for their 16 months of investigative coverage of the collapse.

A memorial was dedicated by Skywalk Memorial Foundation, a nonprofit organization established for victims of the collapse, on November 12, 2015, in Hospital Hill Park across the street from the hotel. It included a $25,000 donation from Hallmark Cards.

Jack D. Gillum (1928–2012), the owner of the engineering company and an engineer of record for the Hyatt project, occasionally lectured at engineering conferences for years after the tragedy. Claiming full responsibility and disturbed by his memories "365 days a year", he said he wanted "to scare the daylights out of them" in the hope of preventing future mistakes.

The Kansas City rock band The Rainmakers' "Rockin' at the T-Dance", on their 1986 album The Rainmakers, commemorates the tragedy and the negligence that caused it, associating them with the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, the Apollo 1 fire and the Apollo 13 oxygen tank failure and subsequent investigation.

See also

• Engineering disasters
• List of structural failures and collapses

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