The I-35W Mississippi River Bridge, which was structurally deficient, was an eight-lane, steel truss arch bridge that carried I-35W across the Saint Anthony Falls of the Mississippi River in Minneapolis. During the evening rush hour on Aug. 1,2007, the bridge suddenly collapsed, killing 13 people and injuring 145. The bridge was the third busiest in Minnesota, carrying 140,000 vehicles daily. Gusset plates that were designed too thin were likely the cause of the collapse. The NTSB noted one of the gusset plates ripped along a line of rivets and asserted that additional weight on the bridge at the time of the accident. Since 1993, the bridge was inspected annually by the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) although no inspection report was completed in 2007 due to construction work. In the years prior to the collapse, several reports cited problems with the bridge structure.
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