Sunshine Skyway Bridge among bridges NTSB wants evaluated for risk of collapse

Name: Skyway Bridge could be evaluated for collapse risk
Uploaded: 2025-03-21T09:41:08-04:00
Description: The NTSB has called for 68 bridges to undergo collision vulnerability assessments, including the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. FOX 13’s Kellie Cowan reports.

Skyway Bridge could be evaluated for collapse risk

The NTSB has called for 68 bridges to undergo collision vulnerability assessments, including the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. FOX 13’s Kellie Cowan reports.

WASHINGTON - The National Transportation Safety Board wants inspectors to look at dozens of bridges nationwide, including the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, to figure out whether they're at risk of collapsing if they're hit by a vessel.

The NTSB says the 68 bridges on its list are not necessarily in imminent danger of collapse, but until safety assessments are completed, neither federal nor local governments are certain what the risk levels are.

Baltimore bridge collapse led to NTSB report

The backstory:

Six people died in March 2024 when a cargo ship crashed into a support column of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore.

Forensic operations technicians from various state and federal agencies assisted in analyzing data acquired from the US Army Corps of Engineers survey Boat the Catlett in the Baltimore Harbor on March 27, 2024. They were using sonar equipment to dete ( )

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The NTSB found that the bridge was nearly 30 times above the acceptable risk threshold, saying officials would have been aware of how vulnerable the bridge was had the Maryland Department of Transportation completed an assessment.

1980 Sunshine Skyway Bridge collapse

Dig deeper:

Sadly, the Tampa Bay area is also the site of a major bridge collapse nearly 45 years ago.

On May 9, 1980, the Freighter Summit Venture careened into one of the support beams on the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, killing 35 people as several vehicles – including a Greyhound bus – plummeted into the bay.

9th May 1980: Debris from the Sunshine Skyway Bridge perched on the bow of the freighter Summit Venture after the vessel rammed the bridge during a thunderstorm at Tampa Bay, Florida, causing 34 deaths. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)

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The new Skyway Bridge opened in 1987 with numerous safety enhancements to safeguard against collisions. The bridge was elevated, the channel was widened and features such as large concrete barriers – known as "dolphins" – were added.

Pictured: Sunshine Skyway Bridge.

Bridges on the NTSB's list

The 68 bridges on the NTSB's list were built before 1991 when new safety standards were set.

The Golden Gate Bridge in California, the Brooklyn Bridge in New York and the Napoleon Bonaparte Broward Bridge (Dames Point Bridge) in Jacksonville are also on the list, along with the Sunshine Skyway Bridge.

What they're saying:

"These bridge owners need to be looking at recent vessel traffic. Things have changed over time. Vessels have gotten bigger, heavier," NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said. "At one point in the 1950s, we had vessels that had just 800 containers on them. Now we're talking 24,000 containers."

You can find the full list in the NTSB's report by clicking here.

The Source: Information for this story was gathered by FOX 13's Kellie Cowan.

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