After you've dropped a bridge on dozens of occupied automobiles, your career is ruined, full stop. No one in TFA claimed that the mistakes were "only obvious in retrospect". All 4 experts independently identified strut 11 as being far too weak, after less than a weekend of study. The original engineer whose firm was paid millions of dollars should have performed the same analysis they did over the weekend, at least.

1. Accidents happen. If the original engineering firm followed accepted practices then it doesn't matter how quickly someone else found the flaw after the flaw was made evident by the collapse.

2. "After you've dropped a bridge...": Until the investigation is complete, no one has any business assigning responsibility. (In fact, the investigation probably won't assign responsibility; that will be the job of the court system in the subsequent lawsuits.)

http://to70.com/why-aviation-safety-experts-dont-talk-about-...