Hyatt Regency walkway collapse

On July 17, 1981, two walkways collapsed at the Hyatt Regency Kansas City hotel in Kansas City, Missouri, United States, one directly above the other. They crashed onto a tea dance being held in the hotel's lobby, killing 114 and injuring 216. As a product of a corporate culture of profound neglect, the disaster contributed many lessons to the study of engineering ethics and errors, and to emergency management. The event remains the deadliest non‑deliberate structural failure in American history, and it was the deadliest structural collapse in the U.S. until the collapse of the World Trade Center towers 20 years later.

The Kansas City Star described a national climate of "high unemployment, inflation and double-digit interest rates [which added] pressure on builders to win contracts and complete projects swiftly". Described by the newspaper as fast-tracked, construction began in May 1978 on the 40-story Hyatt Regency Kansas City. There were numerous delays and setbacks, including the collapse of 2,700 square feet of the roof. The newspaper observed that "Notable structures around the country were failing at an alarming rate"; notable incidents included the 1979 Kemper Arena roof collapse and the 1978 Hartford Civic Center roof collapse. The hotel officially opened on July 1, 1980.

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