Ethical Issues from the Kansas City Hyatt Hotel Collapse - 3 PDH

Course Outline

1. History of the project

2. The structural failure

3. The post-mortem

4. Was the disaster preventable?

5. Were the post-mortem conclusions appropriate?

6. Were the actions of the profession appropriate?

7. Would conclusions be different if the failure occurred today?

8. How do we prevent similar events in the future?

Learning Objectives

• Learn about the history of the project and the members of the design and construction team.

• Learn how economic considerations affect engineering decisions.

• Learn about the ominous earlier structural failure that should have foretold this tragedy.

• Learn how the parties to the design and construction effort held themselves out to the public.

• Learn from file photos what investigators at the scene saw at the time.

• Learn about the technical investigation headed by the National Bureau of Standards.

• Learn about the investigation and conclusions reach by the Missouri engineering registration board.

• Learn how engineering societies reacted to the event.

• Learn how contemporary project delivery methods might lead to different conclusions about responsibility today.

• Learn the three essentials to guard against a recurrence of this type of tragedy in the future.