Insufficient Route Planning, Escort Failure to Blame For Skagit River Bridge Failure, Investigation Finds
Insufficient motor carrier route planning, a failure by a pilot/escort to warn of potential hazards and inadequate evaluation of oversize load permit requests by state officials were the probable causes of an oversize truck strike that brought down the Interstate 5 Skagit River Bridge in Washington state, according to a final investigation report of the National Transportation Safety Board.
The report further details primary source material, facts, conclusions and recommendations of NTSB investigators that were first outlined last month at an NTSB board meeting on the May 23, 2013, incident.
The board approved the conclusions reached in the investigation and made a list of 18 recommendations to the Federal Highway Administration and several other state and national transportation safety-related agencies to help prevent similar mishaps in the future.
“What you have is a much more detailed explanation of all the components of the investigation that we felt were relevant to the probable cause,” NTSB spokesman Peter Knudson said of the final report made public on Aug. 8. “Is there a smoking gun that wasn’t already mentioned? No, I don’t think so.”
