Press release: “The National Transportation Safety Board today issued a safety recommendation that addresses a design issue with the I-35W bridge that collapsed into the Mississippi river on August 1, 2007. In this accident, approximately 1,000 feet of the deck truss fell into the river, and as a result, 13 people died and 145 people were injured…During the wreckage recovery, investigators discovered that gusset plates at eight different joint locations in the main center span were fractured. The Board, with assistance from the FHWA, conducted a thorough review of the design of the bridge, with an emphasis on the design of the gusset plates. This review discovered that the original design process of the I-35W bridge led to a serious error in sizing some of the gusset plates in the main truss…The Safety Board emphasizes that there is no evidence to suggest that the deficiencies in the various design review procedures associated with this bridge are widespread or even go beyond this particular bridge. In fact, this is the only bridge failure of this type of which the Safety Board is aware.”