Buildings That Kill

In July 1981, two suspended walkways within the atrium of the Kansas City Hyatt Regency Hotel collapsed, resulting in the death of 114 people. It was the single largest structural disaster in terms of loss of life in U.S. history. To determine the cause of the disaster, officials turned to forensic engineering. Armed with electron microscopes, pachometres, metallurgy laboratories, sophisticated portable field testing equipment and some basic detective skills, forensic engineers are able to determine why a structure collapsed and ascertain the exact state of a structure's health before disaster can occur.