Notable flaws
Bridges
The River Dee Bridge was designed by Robert Stephenson, using cast iron girders reinforced with wrought iron struts. On May 24, 1847, it collapsed as a train passed over it, killing five people. Its collapse was the subject of one of the first formal investigations into structural failure. This investigation concluded that the design of the structure was fundamentally flawed, as the wrought iron did not reinforce the casting elements as expected and the casting had failed due to repeated bending.[6].
The Dee Bridge disaster was followed by a series of cast iron bridge collapses, including the collapse of the first Tay Railway Bridge on 28 December 1879. Like the Dee Bridge, the Tay Viaduct collapsed when a train passed over it, killing 75 people. The bridge failed because it was built of poorly produced cast iron and because the engineer behind the project, Thomas Bouch, did not consider the wind load on the structure. Its collapse led to cast iron being replaced by steel construction and a complete redesign in 1890 of the Forth Bridge, making it the world's first all-steel bridge.[7].
The 1940 collapse of the original Tacoma Narrows Bridge is sometimes characterized in physics textbooks as a classic example of resonance, although this description is misleading. The catastrophic vibrations that destroyed the bridge were not due to simple mechanical resonance, but to a more complicated oscillation between the bridge and the winds passing through it, known as aeroelasticity. Robert H. Scanlan"), a major contributor to the understanding of bridge aerodynamics, wrote an article about this misunderstanding.[8] The collapse of the suspension bridge and the research that followed led to a greater understanding of wind/structure interactions. Several bridges were modified after the Tacoma collapse to prevent such a thing from happening again. The only fatality was a dog named Tubby.[7].
The I-35W Bridge (officially known simply as Bridge 9340) was an eight-lane steel truss arch structure of Interstate 35W "Interstate 35W (Minnesota)") over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, United States. The bridge was completed in 1967 and was maintained by the Minnesota Department of Transportation. It was the fifth busiest crossing in Minnesota,[9][10] carrying 140,000 vehicles a day.[11] The bridge suffered a catastrophic failure in the middle of rush hour, during the night of August 1, 2007, collapsing into the river. Thirteen people were killed and 145 injured. After the collapse, the Federal Highway Administration recommended states inspect all 700 similarly constructed U.S. bridges[12] after a possible design flaw was discovered in the bridge, related to the design of the haunches (oversized steel plates) that were used to connect girders of the truss structure.[13][14] Officials expressed concern about many other bridges in the United States. that shared the same design and raised questions about why the problem had not been discovered in more than 40 years of inspections.[14].
Buildings
On April 4, 2013, a building collapsed on communal land in Mumbra, a suburb of the city of Thane in Maharashtra, India. It has been described as one of the worst building collapses in India: 74 people died, including 18 children, 23 women and 33 men, although He was able to rescue 100 survivors.[20][21][22]
The building was under construction, and did not yet have a certificate of occupancy to accommodate its planned 100 to 150 low- to moderate-income residents.[23] Its only occupants at the time of the collapse were the building's own construction workers and their families. The building was reported to have been constructed illegally because standard practices for safe and legal construction, land acquisition, and resident occupancy were not followed.
By April 11, a total of 15 suspects were arrested, including builders, engineers, municipal officials and other responsible parties. Government records indicate that instructions were given to control the number of illegal buildings in the area: a 2005 order from the state of Maharashtra to use remote sensing and a 2010 order from the Bombay High Court. Complaints were also filed against state and municipal officials.
On April 9, the Thane Municipal Corporation launched a drive to demolish illegal buildings in the area, putting a spotlight on "potentially dangerous" buildings, and set up a call center to accept and track resolutions of complaints about illegal buildings. Meanwhile, the forest department has promised to address the issue of forest land encroachment in Thane district.
On April 24, 2013, the Rana Plaza, an eight-story commercial building, collapsed in Savar, a subdistrict in the Greater Dhaka Area, the capital of Bangladesh. The search for the dead ended on May 13, leaving 1,134 dead.[24] Approximately 2,515 injured people were rescued alive from the building.[25][26].
It is considered the deadliest clothing factory accident in history, as well as the most serious structural failure in modern history.[23][27].
The building contained clothing factories, a bank, apartments and several other stores. Shops and the bank on the lower floors closed immediately after cracks were discovered in the building.[28][29][30] Warnings to avoid using the building were ignored after cracks appeared the previous day. The garment workers were ordered to return the next day, and the building collapsed during the morning rush hour.[31].
On June 29, 1995, the Sampoong department store, a five-story building located in Seocho-gu, Seoul, South Korea, collapsed, killing 502 people and trapping another 1,445.
In April 1995, cracks began to appear in the ceiling of the fifth floor of the south wing of the building, due to the presence of an air conditioning unit in the weakened roof of the poorly constructed structure. On the morning of June 29, as the number of cracks in the ceiling increased dramatically, store managers closed the upper floor and turned off the air conditioning, but did not lock the building or issue formal evacuation orders when the executives themselves left the premises as a precaution.
Aircraft
Repeated structural failures of the same type of aircraft occurred in 1954, when two De Havilland DH.106 Comet jets crashed due to decompression caused by fuselage failure due to material fatigue, and in 1963–64, when the stabilizing surfaces of four Boeing B-52 bombers broke in mid-air.
Others
On August 8, 1991 at 16:00 UTC, the Warsaw radio antenna, the tallest structure ever erected before the construction of the Burj Khalifa tower, collapsed as a result of an error in changing the guy wires at the highest level. The mast first bent and then snapped about half its height. A small mobile crane in Mostostal Zabrze was destroyed. As all workers left the mast before carrying out the maneuver to reposition the guy cables, there were no fatalities, in contrast to the similar collapse of the WLBT Tower in 1997.
On July 17, 1981, two walkways suspended above the lobby of the Hyatt Hotel in Kansas City, Missouri collapsed, killing 114 people and injuring more than 200 during a tea dance. The collapse was due to a last-minute design change, which altered the method by which the rods supporting the walkways were connected to them. The change inadvertently doubled the stresses being supported at the connection points. The ruling highlighted the need for good communication between design engineers and contractors, as well as rigorous controls on projects and, especially, design changes proposed by contractors. Failure is a standard case study in engineering courses around the world, and is used to teach the importance of ethical behavior in engineering.[41][42].
On February 21, 2025, at approximately 20:40 (GTM-5 time), the Real Plaza Trujillo shopping center in Trujillo "Trujillo (Perú)") (Peru), suffered a structural failure when part of its roof collapsed. The incident left at least eight dead, including children, and 84 injured. The collapse mainly affected the food court and the children's play area of the establishment.[43][44][45] This is one of the most important deadly events that occurred in a leisure venue managed by a private company and the treatment of the victims has been compared to that of the fire at the Utopia nightclub in Jockey Plaza.[46].
On May 22, 2024, at 20:08 CST (GTM−6), a stage collapsed during a campaign rally for Nuevo León mayoral candidate Lorenia Canavati") and presidential candidate Jorge Máynez by the Citizen Movement political party in San Pedro Garza García, in the northeastern Mexican state of Nuevo León, the incident left at least 10 dead and 213 injured.[47][48] It is known that one of the main causes of this collapse, apart from the poor infrastructure of the place, were the weather conditions with wind gusts of 50 to 70 km/h.[49].