August 2026
Intermediate
320 pages
9h 46m
English
On July 1, 1980, the new Hyatt Regency hotel opened in Kansas City, Missouri. Guests walked in to see a beautiful multi-story atrium crisscrossed by steel, glass, and concrete catwalks. Just over a year later, as 1,600 people gathered in that atrium for a tea dance, the fourth-floor catwalk, with 20 people on it, came loose from its moorings and plunged onto the second-floor catwalk. The two together then came crashing down to the ground floor. In all, 114 people were killed, and 216 more were injured. Forensic analysis showed that the root cause was a minor change in how bolts were attached during construction: a trivial-looking change that doubled the load on the nuts. Behind ...
Read now
Unlock full access