The Disaster That Changed Engineering: The Hyatt Regency Collapse
Tom Scott
Why leaders watch it
A small unreviewed design change caused a catastrophic collapse, showing how communication gaps and weak change control kill.
A Tom Scott guest video by Grady Hillhouse of Practical Engineering on the 1981 Hyatt Regency walkway collapse. A seemingly minor change to the support design led to catastrophic failure, which is why the case is taught as a lesson to check and double-check everything.
Takeaways
- Informal changes without review caused the failure
- Verify who owns each design decision
- Disasters come from process gaps, not one person
Topics: Failure, safety & learning orgs, Systems thinking & complexity
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