FIU Bridge Collapse: Causes, Victims, and the $103M Settlement

The FIU bridge collapse happened on March 15, 2018, when a 174-foot pedestrian span under construction at Florida International University fell about 18.5 feet onto SW 8th Street in Miami, crushing eight vehicles, killing six people, and injuring ten others. Federal investigators later concluded the collapse was caused by design and construction plan errors by FIGG Bridge Engineers, compounded by a decision to keep the road open and retension steel rods inside the failing span even as cracks grew to several inches deep.¹

What Happened on March 15, 2018

The roughly 950-ton concrete truss span had been lifted onto its support piers just five days earlier. It was meant to carry pedestrians between FIU’s Modesto A. Maidique Campus and the City of Sweetwater across an eight-lane highway. At the time of the failure, workers were on top of the bridge retensioning post-tensioning rods inside a diagonal truss member known as member 11, following instructions from FIGG, the engineer of record.²

At approximately 1:46 p.m., the connection between truss members 11 and 12 and the bridge deck failed, and the span dropped onto the roadway. Two westbound lanes beneath the north end were closed, but one westbound lane and all five eastbound lanes were open. Motorists stopped at the red light at SW 109th Avenue were directly under the span when it came down.¹

Who Was Killed

Five of the six people killed were in vehicles beneath the bridge. The sixth was a construction worker on top of it. Ten others were injured, five of them construction workers.¹ The dead were:

Alexa Duran, 18, an FIU freshman riding in her father’s vehicle at the red light.³
Navaro Brown, 37, a worker employed by Structural Technologies VSL who was on top of the bridge and died at the hospital.³
Brandon Brownfield, 39, a crane technician for Maxim Crane Works, found in a white Ford pickup.⁴
Alberto Arias, 53, and Osvaldo González, 57, business owners and life partners whose bodies were recovered from the rubble two days after the collapse.³
Rolando Fraga Hernandez, 60, a systems technician at ITG Communications.³

The Cracks Everyone Saw Coming

The bridge had been showing signs of structural distress for days before it fell. Cracking in the area where truss members 11 and 12 met the deck first appeared when construction falsework was removed and worsened after the span was moved into position. By March 13, cracks measuring 3 to 4 inches deep were visible at the northern end.¹

On March 12, the general contractor, Munilla Construction Management (MCM), warned FIGG of “significant and worsening cracking,” describing some cracks as “rather large and/or of concern.” The next day FIGG president Linda Figg emailed engineer of record Denney Pate urging him to focus on the cracks. Pate notified the Florida Department of Transportation, but a FIGG supervisor emailed MCM the same day stating the firm did not consider the cracking a safety issue.⁵ Two days before the collapse, a FIGG engineer left an FDOT official a voicemail acknowledging the cracking was “not good” and would need repair, while adding the firm saw no safety concern.⁶

On the morning of March 15, FIGG hosted a two-hour meeting at 9:00 a.m. with FIU, MCM, FDOT, and Bolton Perez and Associates. FIGG presented calculations arguing there was no safety concern and advised that temporary shoring was not necessary. Bolton Perez representatives asked whether the repair plan had been peer-reviewed and said they wanted “more eyes” on it; FIGG confirmed no peer review had occurred. The road stayed open. Less than five hours later, the bridge fell.⁵

What the NTSB Found Caused the Collapse

The National Transportation Safety Board adopted its final report on October 22, 2019, assigning probable cause to design and construction plan errors by FIGG in the nodal region where truss members 11 and 12 connected to the deck.¹

FIGG’s calculations substantially overestimated how much load the critical node could carry and underestimated the forces acting on it. The interface shear demand at the node was underestimated by 46 percent, leaving the node with insufficient reinforcing steel.⁷ “Cold joints,” where new concrete failed to bond properly with earlier pours, created weak planes through the node, and nonstructural hollow pipes inside the region further reduced its load-carrying capacity. The design plans did not require that interface surfaces between the deck and diagonal members be intentionally roughened, a step that would have improved shear resistance.⁸

When cracks appeared, FIGG directed crews to retension the post-tensioning rods inside member 11 as a remedial measure. The NTSB concluded that this was the wrong response: rather than relieving the problem, retensioning increased the forces on the failing connection and precipitated the collapse. FIGG had not submitted the retensioning plan for independent peer review.⁷

The structure also had no redundancy. It was built with a single load path, so when the member 11/12 connection failed, there was no backup system to redistribute forces and prevent total collapse. FIGG had assumed a structural redundancy factor of 1.0 in its design.⁸

Contributing factors identified by the board included an inadequate independent peer review by The Louis Berger Group, which the NTSB found was rushed, underfunded, and performed by a firm not properly qualified by FDOT; the failure of MCM, FIGG, Bolton Perez, FIU, and FDOT to stop work or close SW 8th Street despite cracking at “unacceptable levels”; and insufficient FDOT oversight for a project of that complexity.⁹

Fines, Debarments, and Professional Discipline

OSHA cited five contractors for workplace safety violations, with proposed fines totaling $86,658. MCM and Structural Technologies/VSL together faced $25,868 in proposed fines tied to improper fall-arrest systems. FIGG was cited for a serious violation, and Bolton Perez and Associates and Structural Group of South Florida were also cited. The firms contested the citations.¹⁰ OSHA’s forensic findings went further than the fine amounts suggest: the agency concluded the magnitude of the cracks warranted immediate road closure and shoring, and that FIGG, MCM, and Bolton Perez had all failed to exercise independent professional judgment to protect public safety.²

On January 19, 2021, the Federal Highway Administration debarred FIGG Bridge Engineers and lead engineer Denney Pate from federally funded projects for nine years, retroactive to July 14, 2020, and running through July 14, 2029.¹¹ The FHWA later moved to debar nine affiliated companies and FIGG owner Linda Figg. Those entities sued in federal court in Tallahassee to block the proposal, but in July 2024 a judge dismissed the case, ruling they had failed to show a final agency action.¹²

The Florida Board of Professional Engineers investigated Pate and found him negligent. Pate surrendered his Florida professional engineering license on the condition he would not seek reinstatement. He has not admitted culpability and has maintained the failure resulted from construction errors by MCM and its subcontractors; federal and state investigators rejected that contention.¹³

MCM, later renamed Magnum Construction Management, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on March 1, 2019, in the Southern District of Florida.¹⁴ The company lost its FDOT certifications and reported an estimated $200 million loss in future project revenue, the Texas Department of Transportation terminated it from a $35 million highway project, and its Panama division ceased operations and faced involuntary bankruptcy proceedings.¹⁵

Lawsuits and the $103 Million Settlement

Victims’ families and survivors sued 26 companies connected to the project.¹⁶ In May 2019, MCM and its insurers agreed to pay up to $42 million to victims.¹⁴ On December 12, 2019, a U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge approved a broader reorganization plan incorporating a total $103 million settlement shared among the families of the six people killed and those injured.¹⁷

Louis Berger, the peer-review firm, resolved claims separately. It independently settled three death claims and eventually reached a confidential settlement with the family of Brandon Brownfield, who had sought punitive damages. In October 2021, a judge had ruled there was sufficient evidence for the Brownfield family to pursue punitive damages against the firm over its failure to identify design errors.¹⁸ OSHA’s engineering office found Berger had been retained only for a final inspection rather than the phased reviews required at 30, 60, and 90 percent of design completion, and concluded the collapse might have been avoided had those incremental reviews been performed.¹⁹

Was Anyone Charged Criminally?

The Miami-Dade Police Department opened a homicide investigation, and the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office reviewed evidence to determine whether manslaughter by culpable negligence charges were warranted against FIGG, individual engineers, or others involved. As of October 2019, no criminal charges had been filed, and legal experts quoted at the time noted that proving criminal negligence in construction disasters is historically difficult.²⁰ The available record does not establish that criminal charges were ever brought.

The Replacement Bridge and the Memorial

On March 15, 2022, the fourth anniversary of the collapse, FIU unveiled a memorial plaza near its Green Library. The site features a bronze statue of Alexa Duran in front of flying doves, with 18 doves representing each year of her life, and five surrounding pillars honoring the other five victims. Each year the university holds a commemorative gathering at the plaza, ringing a bell six times at 1:47 p.m.²¹²²

A $38 million replacement bridge is under construction at the same location. Unlike the original project, this one is managed entirely by FDOT and uses a different design with cable stays, steel beams, and dual pylons with multiple structural redundancies.²³²⁴²⁵ The bridge includes pedestrian plazas with elevators and stairs at both ends and is expected to open by fall 2026.²⁶

1
NTSB. Highway Accident Report NTSB/HAR-19/02
2
OSHA. OSHA Investigation Report – FIU Pedestrian Bridge
3
Miami Herald. FIU Bridge Collapse Victims
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CNN. Bridge Collapse Victims
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NBC Miami. Engineers Dismissed Crack Concerns on Morning of FIU Bridge Collapse
6
Politico. Documents: Scott Administration Had Long-Running Role in Collapsed FIU Bridge
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NTSB. NTSB Safety Recommendations – FIU Bridge
8
Engineering News-Record. NTSB’s FIU Bridge Collapse Investigation Finds Many Problems
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Engineering News-Record. NTSB: Errors by FIGG Led to Fatal Bridge Collapse
10
Engineering News-Record. OSHA Fines Five Contractors in FIU Bridge Collapse
11
DOT OIG. FHWA Debars FIGG Bridge Engineers and Lead Engineer
12
CBS News Miami. Judge Rejects Case From Firms Involved in Deadly FIU Pedestrian Bridge Collapse
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Miami Herald. FIU Bridge Engineer Denney Pate
14
Construction Dive. FIU Bridge Collapse Contractor Files for Bankruptcy
15
Engineering News-Record. Prior to Tragic Bridge Collapse, Contractor MCM Piled Up Losses
16
The National Trial Lawyers. Miami Bridge Collapse Victims in $103M Settlement
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CBS News Miami. FIU Bridge Collapse Victims $103 Million Settlement
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NBC Miami. Family of FIU Bridge Collapse Victim Settles Suit Against Engineering Firm
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Construction Dive. Louis Berger Only Firm Refusing to Settle FIU Bridge Collapse Claims
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Miami Herald. FIU Bridge Collapse Criminal Investigation
21
FIU News. FIU Unveils Bridge Memorial, Statue of Alexa Duran
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Panther Now. FIU Community Gathers to Observe Fifth Anniversary of Bridge Collapse
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WLRN. FIU Pedestrian Bridge Collapse 8-Year Anniversary
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FDOT Miami-Dade. SW 8 Street Pedestrian Bridge Project
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Panther Now. Construction Progresses on New FIU-Sweetwater Pedestrian Bridge
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FIU News. 8th Street Pedestrian Bridge Construction Begins Next Month