Causes Of Bonfire Tragedy Cited

(May 2, 2000) Texas A&M University students cut corners in construction and school officials failed to adequately supervise them in assembling 2 million pounds of bonfire logs that collapsed last fall, killing 12 Aggies, an investigation of the deadly accident concluded Tuesday.

However, the commission suggested those problems could be fixed, reports CBS News Correspondent Maureen Maher.

While presenting the findings, commission chairman Leo Lindbeck said, "There is sufficient information contained in the report to provide the framework in which Bonfire can continue."

That comment, after his formal presentation, brought a series of whoops from the crowd of some 1,500 students who filed quietly into Reed Arena, the A&M basketball stadium, to listen to the findings.

The report by the five-member panel, asked by the school to determine a cause for the collapse, cited organizational failures and structural problems as the chief reasons for the Nov. 18 accident.

"This is a decades-old process that has taken root," said Lindbeck, a Houston construction executive. He pointed to a cultural bias and tunnel vision by the school and bonfire participants.

The commission said student drinking and horseplay were not a direct cause, but were among the problems that led to organizational failure.

Michael Self, whose 20-year-old son Jerry was one of those killed, told CBS News that he was "very much" relieved with the findings of the report, particularly that alcohol was not a direct cause, but was one of several problems that led to the organizational failure.

Initial tests right after the tragedy showed Jerry Self and another Aggie bonfire victim had blood alcohol levels that exceeded the state's limit. A second sampling showed both were only slightly above the .08 percent legal limit for intoxication.

After the report was released Tuesday, results of a third alcohol test on the two dead students were called inconclusive.

The toxicologist pointed to handling, storage, exposure to air, and sample degradation as factors contributing to the inconclusive results.

"They probably need a little more supervision out there, when there's a bonfire. My son didn't drink normally. He was there only for a celebration and I was glad to hear that he hadn't been drinking excessively like they had first reported," Michael Self said.

He added that doesn't hold anyone responsible for the tragedy, and harbors no resentment. He would like the tradition to carry on. "I don't think my son died in vain because of this tradition. He was proud to be there. If they don't keep it going, I believe they died in senseless deaths."

The university report cites three main factors:

• A lack of a support cable on the first stack.
• Weak wire used to coil the logs internally.
• Improper wedging of the many of the 5,000 logs in the 59-foot-high structure.

Two independent probes are still investigating the accident.

For 90 years students have built the bonfire for a pep-rally for the annual game against rival University of Texas.

The report blasted the university for allowing the kids to build it themselves without detailed plans and adequate supervision, saying safe bonfire construction was beyond the capability of student leaders.

School President Ray Bowen, who reiterated taking responsibility for the disaster, said he would need about six weeks to decide whether to continue the bonfire.

"I have not made up my mind," he said. "If I allow my heart to make the decision, we would continue bonfire. My heart will not make the decision. By brain needs to make the decision."

He also praised the commission for what he said was its thoroughness and precision.

"I'm pleased and I accept it," he said. "There's nothing I've heard that I disagree with."

"The most important point is the fact that combination of factors and not one factor led to collapse," said panel member Hugh Robinson, chairman of a Dallas construction management company.

Commissioner Veronica Kastrin Callaghan of El Paso focused on behavioral problems learned by the panel and cited "considerable evidence" of irresponsible behavior, hazing and harassment by student leaders of bonfire, horseplay and substantial use of alcohol.

"If the university were to interpret alcohol and hazing problems as an indication of bonfire organization ... in our view ongoing problems with bonfire were so overwhelming, it should have triggered an overall organization of bonfire," she said. "Unfortunately, this did not occur."

While both students and school officials said safety was a priority, Callaghan said everyone ignored a sharp increase in injuries in recent years, ignored previous structural problems that had occurred with the bonfire project and missed opportunities to fix them.

"It's a true example of an organizational accident with causes that existed for some time before the event," she said.

"Bonfire has grown from a trash pile into a massive structure, from just a few participants to thousands, ... from minor mishaps to tragedy. For bonfire, the university's role was to ensure controls were in place so if a failure occurred, results would be inconsequential," she said.

"The central message is clear," she added. "The collapse was about physical failures driven by organizational failures whose origins span decades of administrations, faculty and students."

Many Aggies, including relatives of those who were killed in the collapse, have said they want the tradition to remain.

The university paid for the $1.8 million investigation.

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