He improperly designed five bridges, this is just the one that collapsed, starting the investigation.
Now he’s prohibited from working on bridge projects for 5 years. I think that’s prudent, he could have easily killed people.
Wondering if this was just due to negligence, or if there were other systemic issues that allowed or encouraged these design problems, like pressure from management, or improper reviews. Feels like a pretty big failure to not have this work checked by at least one other engineer.
In a 5Ys/RCA process, I always make it a point to focus on process failures pretty much exclusively… except when there’s malfeasance, negligence, or outright incompetence involved. This situation seems like one of those exceptional instances.
But there were clearly some process failures as well.
The client told him to cut corners. He acted unprofessionally by not refusing to do so. From an earlier report:
In response to the lawsuit, Gullacher and his companies agreed that they hadn’t done a geotechnical investigation, but insisted that was at the client’s request.
“The RM provided the instruction that no geotechnical investigation should be obtained as the RM was concerned about the additional cost and delay,” says Gullacher and Inertia’s statement of defence.
“Inertia admits that a portion of the bridge collapsed,” the statement says, “but denies that its design or specifications caused the collapse and puts the plaintiff to strict proof thereof.”
Inertia says the RM may bear some blame because it decided to forgo the geotechnical work. It also says that after the bridge was built, the RM “installed gravel on the bridge to a depth of 13 to 16 inches with an average depth of 14 inches, which far exceeded the specified load.”
Both parties share responsibility here. He’s incompetent and unethical and should not be allowed to continue to practice at all. The relevant professional bodies need to issue clear instructions, and strike off any practitioner that just shrugs and does what the client wants. (Yes, it is a problem in my entirely different field too.)
the RM “installed gravel on the bridge to a depth of 13 to 16 inches with an average depth of 14 inches, which far exceeded the specified load.”
WTF, why the hell would they go and dump 16 inches of gravel on the bridge? That’s an awful lot of weight.
Clearly this guy couldn’t have stopped them dumping gravel after the bridge was completed, but allowing the client to save money on critical safety measures is inexcusable.
He improperly designed five bridges, this is just the one that collapsed, starting the investigation.
Now he’s prohibited from working on bridge projects for 5 years. I think that’s prudent, he could have easily killed people.
Wondering if this was just due to negligence, or if there were other systemic issues that allowed or encouraged these design problems, like pressure from management, or improper reviews. Feels like a pretty big failure to not have this work checked by at least one other engineer.
I do wonder if even 5 years is enough if there’s a pattern.
I find it funny that nobody (including the article) is discussing the chance that it’s straight up incompetence.
Yeah, this is a very good point too. Where’s the peer review on something that is so critical!?
In a 5Ys/RCA process, I always make it a point to focus on process failures pretty much exclusively… except when there’s malfeasance, negligence, or outright incompetence involved. This situation seems like one of those exceptional instances.
But there were clearly some process failures as well.
!remind in 5 years. don’t cross new canadian bridges.
@remindme@mstdn.social 5 years.
The client told him to cut corners. He acted unprofessionally by not refusing to do so. From an earlier report:
Both parties share responsibility here. He’s incompetent and unethical and should not be allowed to continue to practice at all. The relevant professional bodies need to issue clear instructions, and strike off any practitioner that just shrugs and does what the client wants. (Yes, it is a problem in my entirely different field too.)
WTF, why the hell would they go and dump 16 inches of gravel on the bridge? That’s an awful lot of weight.
Clearly this guy couldn’t have stopped them dumping gravel after the bridge was completed, but allowing the client to save money on critical safety measures is inexcusable.
There’s mention at the end that he lost his company. If he was just a one person consulting gig, that might explain the lack of peer review.