Bridge Probe Photo Gallery II
Photo Gallery
FBI Response to Minneapolis Bridge Collapse
Agencies participating in the recovery efforts gather at an operations center near the collapse site. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) was the lead agency in the federal bridge probe. Local agencies, like the Minneapolis Police Department and the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office, coordinated the recovery response.
Members of the FBI’s Evidence Response Team (ERT) use surveying equipment to map the bridge’s debris field. By plotting millions of points, investigators create a digital representation of the fallen bridge, then marry the information with historical data to help determine what caused the fatal collapse.
FBI and NTSB investigators survey the damage.
An FBI ERT member helps map the debris field of the I-35W bridge. The mapping method, called Total Station, takes precise measurements, which can be used to recreate the bridge collapse in digital form.
Minneapolis Assistant Special Agent in Charge Tim Gossfeld, left, confers with President Bush during the president’s visit to the disaster site.
Divers from the FBI’s Underwater Search and Evidence Response Team probe the bridge wreckage for forensic evidence and missing victims. The agent on the right is lowering an underwater camera into the structure, while divers on the boat view footage from the camera.
ERT members conduct a search for victims in the wreckage. Investigators attached an underwater camera to a long pipe to plumb the tight gaps beneath the structure.
ERT members search for evidence. Divers used scanners and submersible remote operated vehicles to map the area around the bridge and to look for victims.
An FBI diver prepares the small remote operated vehicle (ROV) for operation. The ROV, the smaller of two that divers brought to the site, was able to explore areas underwater that divers might enter to look for victims or evidence.
An FBI diver shows the underwater camera that was fastened to a pole to search tight spots in the rubble.
An ERT member photographs the site from above.
ERT members mapping the site sent their data to our Special Projects Unit, which worked with the NTSB to create a digital representation of the fallen bridge.