The collapse of Hyatt Hotel

Missouri -Kansas City – July 1981

Introduction:

      The construction of this fine hotel as part of the Hyatt chain of hotels was completed in July, 1980. People in Kansas were following the hotel's progress since the initial announcement in 1976. The design phase followed by the construction one, faced many obstacles due to the fact that the main contractor distributed the work to some other subcontractors after the contract was awarded. The subcontractors in turn made agreements with third party subcontractors to do their jobs. They were so many people involved in executing this project that the main contractor couldn’t keep a track of who’s doing what.

The Disaster:

        One year exactly after the opening, there was a dancing contest in the lobby which is held every week. The atrium lobby had large space for such contests and it contained three suspended walkways that were connected to the above floors by suspended rods. The three walkways were designed so that one of them is connected with the second floor, another with the third floor and the last with the fourth floor. The disaster took place as more than 1500 individuals were enjoying their time in the lobby when two of the suspended walkways collapsed. The accident resulted in 114 casualties and more than 200 injuries.  Ironically, there was a similar accident that occurred prior to the official opening of the hotel which took place at the weekend and luckily no one was injured. It happened at the final stage of construction when part of the atrium ceiling came off and no workers were present at the weekend. The disaster started when the walkway attached to the fourth floor collapsed adding more stress to the walkway connected to the second floor which collapsed in return.

Causes and finger-pointing:

       Initially, the accident was thought to be caused by the loud noisy sound stress during the dancing concert. No matter how lame this possibility sounds, the prime cause was found to be an alteration on the original design of the suspended rods which was done by one of the subcontractors in an attempt to reduce the expense. After further investigation within the collapse shrub, the suspended rods had major failure and didn’t comply with the original design causing the two walkways to collapse.

Ethical issues:

        The problem with most construction firms is taking unplanned shortcuts in executing the designed work for the sake of reducing the total expense without enough study. Any modification to the original design should be communicated and addressed clearly with all parties involved to sustain its safety and workability. The other side of the coin suggests that the people hired to commence such jobs are fully experienced and qualified with no room for shortcuts or mistakes. However, the truth remains that any job holder‘s intention is to make as much profit as possible out of greed especially when the consequences permit. Also, the idea of having so many people from different employers work together in one project reduces the allegiance to the main contractor and leads to violations.

Conclusion:

        The Kansas disaster reflected how important testing the building construction from every angle no matter how complex the design is. Also, it showed high weakness in the project management in the sense of not keeping a track of the subcontractor work after distributing the jobs.

Reference:

• Guyer, J. P. (2010). Pdh library - kansas hyatt hotel. Retrieved from http://www.pdhlibrary.com/pdh-ethics-hyatt-hotel-collapse-2918