Engineering Ethics The Quebec Bridge Disaster

Luke Dudley

Ethics, or morale principles, are often overlooked within the engineering

culture and not necessarily associated with the faculty of engineering. In
part because engineers focus on the design, manufacture and operation
aspects, rather than looking further into the ethics involved with the
production and usage of the devices. Also because it is not always taught
to engineering students that ethics are integral to their work. Engineers
often prefer to work on new and exciting projects rather than culturally
beneficial projects, and tend to prioritise technical ingenuity over helping
people.[1] In most cases a slight disregard of ethics does not cause
concern, however in the case of a failure with a design, the issue of ethics
and who is to blame is raised. In this essay I will look closely at the
Quebec bridge disaster and how ethics play a crucial role within
engineering, especially if the loss of human life is involved.
It took three tries and cost 89 lives, [2] The Quebec Bridge was
constructed by the Phoenix Bridge Company of Phoenixville, Pennsylvania,
with Head engineer Theodore Cooper, to try and win commercial rail
traffic in the province, over their close rivals Montreal. Cooper decided on
a cantilever structure as the "best and cheapest plan" to cross the wide
St. Lawrence River. In order to cut the cost of building the piers farther out
in the river, Cooper lengthened the bridge span from 490 metres to 549
metres. This was an ambitious build attempt as it was to be the longest
cantilever bridge ever produced, and at that time, it was to be the longest
spanning bridge built. It was an immense build, as the bridge was not only
549 metres long but it was 20 metres wide, accommodating two railroad
tracks and two roadways. The bridge first collapsed during construction in
1907, due to miscalculations and errors within the design. The second,
redesigned bridge unfortunately collapsed in 1916 due to a jack bearing
failure. Then a year later, a replica of the second bridge was erected and
still stands today. [2] This essay will discuss more on the ethics of the first
collapse, which was caused by faults in the bridges design as opposed to
faulty construction equipment.
For decades to come the Quebec disaster will be quoted, in public and in
private, as an unanswerable proof of the unreliability of engineers and
their works.[3] The structural failure of the Quebec Bridge is considered
one of the worst in history and remains in the memory of the engineering
world, so the errors and disregard of ethics can be learnt from, for the
betterment of the engineers of the future. [4] For engineering projects
there are morale responsibilities of engineers to ensure their work is
accurate and that a mutual consensus is reached that the calculations and
design are thorough and without fault.

The bridge collapse was a tragic event, and the blame was immediately
placed on the engineers and their lack of morale principles to rigorously
recheck calculations regarding the stability of the bridge before alterations
were made and once changes had occurred in the finalised design. The
Quebec Bridge collapse raises many morale issues, in particular giving
responsibility of the disaster to someone or a group of people, and the
requirements of engineers to ensure their work is reliable. A major part of
ethics within engineering, especially when dealing with faults and failures,
is where to place the blame and deal charges to those found responsible,
and how best to compensate those who were affected by the faulty
product. What weight of the blame should go on the managing,
overseeing organisation and what weight should be assigned to those who
carry out the productive tasks within the project? [5]
Cooper, who altered the length of the bridge before construction to try
and reduce cost and modified specifications which allowed for higher unit
stress, was a main suspect for the cause of the disaster. [2] These design
changes were untested before construction commenced, however the
design was checked by a government engineer, Robert Douglas, and he
commented on the high stress caused by the additional lengthening.
Cooper ignored these comments as he thought himself as the leading
Bridge engineer at the time and that the comments were an insult to
himself. [6] Cooper fell ill during the project and seldom visited the
construction, leaving Peter Selapka in charge who was a young engineer
not used to high authority within a project. [5]
Engineers eventually noticed deformation of crucial structures within the
bridge during construction, and when Cooper was informed he assured the
project team that they were minor faults and construction should not be
stopped. An engineer called Norman McLure finally convinced Cooper that
there was a serious matter at hand, and a telegraph ordering the
prohibition of further construction was sent to Quebec. The message was
received, but a chief engineer, John Deans ordered that work continue and
unfortunately the bridge later collapsed with 85 workers still on the
bridge, 75 of those were killed in the disaster, others injured. [6] A
commission was set to order to try and figure out whom was responsible
for the collapse and ultimately the death of the workers, and the causes of
the collapse were fully reported. The initial blame was placed, by the
Canadian Royal Commission, on Theodore Cooper and Peter Selapka, two
supervising, head engineers who were heavily involved with the project.
[3, 4, 5]
The accusation that the supervising engineers were to be held responsible
apparently ignored testimonies and other evidence from documentation in
the commissions report, suggesting that the faults lied deeper in the
whole project and couldnt be placed solely on these two mens shoulders.
The belied evidence more clearly suggests that the fault of the bridge lied

in the projects organisational culture. Krankis argues that there were

three technical errors in the bridge that ultimately lead to its collapse that
werent associated with the aforementioned engineers: flawed design of
the main compression chords, underestimation of the bridges weight, and
the decision to allow unprecedented stress limits. [5] The calculations of
these suggested faults would have been carried out by numerous
engineers, and presumably checked by the supervising engineers. This
collaboration of members of the project means it is hard to place a sole
blame, especially if there is more than one fault.
The blame could be placed on specific engineers who carried out the
calculations or on the supervising engineers whose responsibilities it is to
overview the design. However the point could be made that everyone
played a part in the collapse, so the whole project should be to blame.
Robert Douglas, who initially saw fault in Coopers design, could have
raised more awareness. John Deans, who ordered construction to be
continued even after Cooper had been persuaded to cease further work,
could be to blame for the lost lives. It then becomes a difficult decision of
who should compensate the families of those who lost their lives.
Theodore Coopers career was ended due to this disaster and the blame
remained on his shoulders. There was also a small amount of blame
placed on the Phoenix bridge company for putting profit above safety and
there was a huge blow to the trustworthiness of engineers who neglected
their professional and moral duties.
In conclusion, this disaster, although it is upsetting, raises ethical issues
and provides valuable lessons to the engineers of today about morale
principals, and how ethics do play a crucial part in engineering, and are
not to be put aside. It is vital for engineers working on projects to fulfil
their morale duties to ensure that designs are rigorously checked with
testing of materials and accurate calculations, so that any faults can be
eradicated before any further work goes ahead. The profitability of a
design should never put at risk the integrity of the product, or alter a
feature which could decrease the performance and capabilities of the
finished design. Finally engineering should not always focus on the
advancement of ingenuity of technologies, but consider how the product
will affect the users and better humanity.

[1]

Bowen, W.R., 2009. Engineering Ethics. London: Springer.

[2]

John Tarkov, A Disaster in the Making, American Heritage of

Invention & Technology 1 (spring 1986): pp10-17.

[3]

The Greatest Engineering Disaster, Engineering News 58 (5th

September 1907): pp256.

[4]

Locket, W.G, The Lesson of the Quebec Bridge, Scientia

Canadensis 11, (1987): pp63-89

[5]

Krankis, E., 2004, Fixing the Blame: Organisational Culture and the
Quebec Bridge Collapse. Technology and Culture, Volume 45, pp487489

[6]

Marsh, J.H., 2012, Quebec Bridge Disaster [online], The Canadian

Encyclopaedia, available from:
http://thecanadianencyclopedia.com/featured/quebec-bridgedisaster [Accessed 17th November 2013]