Surfside condo investigators believe deadly collapse started in the pool deck [View all]

Source: ABC News

Surfside condo investigators believe deadly collapse started in the pool deck

Federal investigators announced their preliminary findings on the 2021 collapse.

ByJared Kofsky
September 9, 2025, 5:00 PM ET
• 4 min read

The fall of the Champlain Towers: Tracking the Surfside collapse A look at the Miami condominiums' 40-year lifespan, using public records, expert accounts and access to footage of the collapse and the aftermath. David Santiago/Miami Herald/Tribune News Service via Getty Images

More than four years after the deadly collapse of the Champlain Towers South condominium complex in Surfside, Florida, that killed 98 people, federal investigators announced their preliminary findings on Tuesday regarding the cause of the tragedy.

Members of the National Construction Safety Team (NCST) Advisory Committee found that there were possible issues near the pool deck in the hours, days and weeks leading up to the June 2021 collapse, including a leak from the ceiling, a gate door being stuck and a vertical shift involving a gate.

"Recent work indicates that it is MORE LIKELY that the failure started in a pool deck slab-column connection than we considered in June," the presentation slides stated.

Associate Lead Investigator Glenn Bell acknowledged during the meeting that this has been a difficult investigation since there were “pretty widespread problems with the building, both in design and construction.”

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Read more: https://abcnews.go.com/amp/US/surfside-condo-investigators-deadly-collapse-started-pool-deck/story?id=125402385