An inspector who failed to discover a crack in the Interstate 40 bridge linking Arkansas and Tennessee that prompted the span’s closure has been fired, Arkansas transportation officials said Monday.
Arkansas Department of Transportation Director Lorie Tudor said the inspector was fired after drone video showed the crack on the bridge spanning the Mississippi River in May 2019. Tudor said the crack was not noted by the inspector in his reports that fall or the following year.
Traffic on the six-lane bridge was shut down last Tuesday after inspectors found a “significant fracture” in one of two 900-foot horizontal steel beams that are critical for the bridge’s integrity. River traffic under the span was closed Tuesday but reopened on Friday.
Traffic was being rerouted to Interstate 55 and the 71-year-old Memphis & Arkansas Bridge, about 3 miles south. Arkansas and Tennessee authorities have not given a timeline for when the bridge will reopen.
(From: KTLO/Associated Press)
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