The collapse of the Hyatt Regency Walkway is one of the most
noteworthy failures of modern hotel engineering, as well as a tragically
spectacular sight, when viewed in still photography or moving film. The
walkway was attached to the Hyatt Regency Hotel, a major hotel with a forty-
story tower with extensive residence and conference facilities. The
walkway was build to enable Kansas City, Missouri's numerous tourists and
business travelers to take advantage of the hotel's luxurious rooms and
conference facilities, without having to leave the enclosure of the hotel.
Architecturally, the hotel was split into two components. These
components were connected by an "open concept atrium." Within this atrium,
three suspended walkways connected the hotel and conference facilities on
the second, third and fourth levels. "Due to their suspension, these
walkways were referred to as floating walkways or skyways." The atrium
component of the hotel, while it was still standing, was said to have
boasted 17 000 square ft (1584 m2). It was 50 ft (15m) high. (Rabins,
1992) "It seemed unbelievable that such an architectural masterpiece could
be the involved in the United States' most devastating structural failure
in terms of loss of life and injuries." (Hyatt Bridge Collapse, 2004)
July 17, 1981 approximately 2000 people were gathered to watch a dance
contest in the hotel's "state of the art lobby." While the majority of the
guests were on the ground level, some were dancing on the floating walkways
on the second, third and fourth levels. The second and fourth level
walkways collapsed onto the ground level, taking the lives of 114 people
and leaving over 200 guests injured, simply because they were dancing or
standing on the ground in the wrong place at the wrong time. (Hyatt Bridge
Thus, the customer's, namely the hotel owner's stated need for the
walkway was to connect the ...