Failure as Data
The Case of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge
Overview
Not every engineering project goes according to plan. But even in failure, there is valuable data to be learned. In fact, some of the most important engineering lessons come from studying what went wrong—and why.
The following story of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge is a powerful example of how failure can drive progress.
The Tacoma Narrows Collapse
On November 7, 1940, the newly-built Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapsed in dramatic fashion, just four months after opening. The cause? Aeroelastic flutter—a form of self-reinforcing vibration caused by wind.
Design Vulnerabilities
The bridge's narrow design and flexibility made it vulnerable to these vibrations, which engineers at the time hadn’t fully accounted for. The event was caught on film and became one of the most famous engineering disasters in history.
Lessons Learned
Rather than seeing the collapse as the end, engineers treated it as the beginning of a deeper understanding of wind-structure interaction. The footage and failure analysis led to major advances in aerodynamics and suspension bridge design.
A Better Bridge
The lessons learned from the collapse led to the design and construction of a new, more stable bridge in its place, which is still in use today. Every failure is a data point. Good engineers don’t ignore what goes wrong—they study it.