Photos from 40 years ago capture scene after Hyatt skywalks collapsed in Kansas City
By Chris Ochsner
Kansas City firefighters were on the scene recovering victims hours after the initial collapse of the skywalks in the Hyatt Regency Hotel.
File
The Kansas City Star
READ MORE
1981 Hyatt walkway collapse
A look back at the Hyatt skywalk collapse that killed 114 people on July 17, 1981.
Expand All
Every year, July 17 is a mournful day in Kansas City. That is the day the skywalks collapsed in the lobby of the Hyatt Regency Hotel. The structural failure led to the deaths of 114 people, many who were there for the Friday night tea dance.
Shortly after 7 p.m. on July 17, 1981, as the band played “Satin Doll” the hotel’s fourth- and second-floor skywalks tore loose from their suspension rods and crashed down onto dancers below.
The disaster drew scores of rescue crews that frantically worked to free people trapped under the steel and concrete structures. Construction workers with giant cranes came to lift the wreckage in attempts to get to the victims.
Outside the hotel, ambulance crews along with hotel employees and people who were there to dance lent aid and comfort to injured survivors.
Investigations into why the skywalks collapsed revealed that a change to the initially approved design of the suspension structures along with a series of oversights by designers and builders were at the root of the failure. The tragedy influenced significant changes in engineering safety.
The hotel has since changed ownership and is now the Sheraton Kansas City Hotel at Crown Center. A memorial to those who died was dedicated in 2015 across the street from the hotel at 2401 Gilham Road.
Photojournalists from The Star, along with its then sister paper, The Times, rushed to the hotel to document the chaotic scene. Here are some of those photos.
The chaotic scene inside the lobby of the Hyatt Regency Hotel on July, 17, 1981, moments after the skywalks crashed to the floor crushing and killing more than 100 people who were there for the Friday night tea dance. Water poured down from pipes that broke when the skywalks collapsed. Some of the people trapped under the rubble nearly drowned while rescuers raced to free them. File The Kansas City Star
The Hyatt Regency’s first tea dance about two months before the disaster. The second-floor walkway overlooks the dance. File The Kansas City Star
Firefighters urgently worked to free survivors trapped under the collapsed skywalks at the Hyatt Regency. File The Kansas City Star
A banner at the entrance to the Hyatt Regency Hotel advertised the Friday night tea dances. File The Kansas City Star
Rescuers spent all night removing wreckage to save victims at the Hyatt. Nevertheless, 114 died. File The Kansas City Star
One of the hundreds of people injured in the collapse of the skywalks at the Hyatt Regency Hotel is carried to receive aid. Water from broken water lines due to the collapse covered the floor of the hotel. File The Kansas City Star
Rescuers spent all night removing wreckage to save victims at the Hyatt. Nevertheless, 114 died. File The Kansas City Star
Outside the Hyatt, emergency crews helped treat the survivors in July 1981. File The Kansas City Star
Workers sift through the rubble in the wake of the Hyatt Regency tragedy. File The Kansas City Star
Aftermath from the Hyatt skywalk collapse in July 1981. File The Kansas City Star
Aftermath from the Hyatt skywalk collapse in July 1981. File The Kansas City Star
Outside the Hyatt, emergency crews helped treat the survivors. File The Kansas City Star
A woman who was not an emergency worker comforted a woman injured when the skywalks collapsed at the Hyatt. File The Kansas City Star
The wreckage of the second-floor and fourth-floor skywalks rests on the floor of the lobby of the Hyatt Regency Hotel after they came crashing down killing 114 people who were there to dance. The square doorway where the upper skywalk was attached can be seen in the upper right and the second-floor skywalk was two floors below that. The third-floor skywalk which did not have another skywalk attached to it and was offset from the others remained intact. File
Crane operators climb up the boom of a crane positioned to lift the collapsed skywalks so emergency crews could reach victims trapped under the wreckage. File The Kansas City Star
The booms of large cranes were positioned through windows on the front of the lobby at the Hyatt Regency Hotel to lift the collapsed skywalks so emergency crews could reach victims trapped beneath the wreckage. File The Kansas City Star
Hotel workers and dancers worked alongside professionals, holding IV bags for the injured and digging in the debris to reach those still alive. File The Kansas City Star
Survivors Sol and Rosette Koenigsberg consoled each other after the skywalks collapsed at the Hyatt in 1981. File The Kansas City Star
Firefighters and rescue workers carried the injured to ambulances and loaded them into helicopters for transport to the hospitals. File The Kansas City Star
The first ambulance reached the Hyatt by 7:11 p.m. In the next seven minutes, seven ambulances would be at the scene, with more on the way. Eventually, more than 60 construction workers would assist in the rescue, along with some people who were in the dance contest and still had numbers on their backs. File The Kansas City Star
A man and a woman embrace in a hug outside of the Hyatt while rescue efforts go on inside. File The Kansas City Star
Mayor Richard Berkley wiped away a tear during a special meeting of the city council after he announced the death of John Tvedten Sr., an off-duty fire battalion chief who died in the collapse of the skywalks. File The Kansas City Star
Investigators examine one of the rods at the point from which the skywalks were hung. File The Kansas City Star
National Bureau of Standards pinpointed this hanger rod-box beam connection as the most probable point of initial failure when two atrium walkways in the Kansas City Hyatt Reagency Hotel collapsed in July 1981. This assembly is from the fourth floor walkway of the hotel.F File The Kansas City Star
Pictured is a section of the highest of two sky walks that collapsed July 17, 1981, at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, killing 114 persons. The mangled box beam near the center of the photo is where the structural failure occurred that allowed the upper skywalk to detach from its support rod and drop down along with the second floor skywalk that was suspended below it onto the floor below. File The Kansas City Star
This image shows the lobby of the newly constructed Hyatt Regency Hotel in 1980. The two skywalks near the window on the left were the ones that collapsed on July 17 1981. Investigations into what caused the collapse determined that the design for the rods that suspended the skywalks from the ceiling had been altered from the original plan which ultimately pushed the suspension system beyond its capacity. The design flaw was missed through a series of oversights by designers and builders. The collapse has become a case study for engineering safety. File The Kansas City Star
This story was originally published July 16, 2021 at 5:24 PM.
