Thanks for the insight and the work you’ve put in. Sorry it has such a personal impact for you.
And welcome to BBS!
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As cool as the footage is, it is still utterly heartbreaking.
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At least the failure happened after 57 years of continuous scientific use. Not bad for a steel thing in the jungle.
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And in an earthquake zone and a hurricane alley and yeah, all that jungle humidity.
Not bad at all.
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That wasn’t even a demolition, it was a Gerry Anderson Supermarionation.
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… and it fell: and great was the fall of it .
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In the Time of “Monoliths” expect “Monoliths”.
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Yeah, the failure was fascinating - you could see the paint popping off as the cables stretched under immense strain just before each cable failed.
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A good reminder to be nowhere near high tension steel cables that are snapping. 
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Fun fact*: If all the data ever gathered by Arecibo were transferred to punch cards, the stack of cards would reach from here to Alpha Centauri.
*not a fact
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Then there’s the person who has sabotaged a mountain gondola in Squamish by cutting the cables. Twice.
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No drone footage though. Very unsatisfactory.
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So they can land a man on the moon but can’t keep a cable attached.
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capex vs opex
Everyone wants to build shiny new shit so they can cut the ribbon. After that no one gives a shit and the funders go all slopey-shouldered when they’re asked for maintenance money.
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If a support tower falls in a forest does anybody hear about it?
Given the location and scale of this thing I’d love to see a video of its construction - no mean feat. And then, do they leave the mess there or spend a gazillion to clean it up?
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Very much this.
This telescope was taken down by decades of ever-increasing neglect as budgets for science got even smaller. This was a preventable tragedy, but it requires thinking beyond the length of a single political term in office.
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Had to look that one up but yeah, the weight of that much steel cable crashing down has got to be enormous.
And so will go bridges and tunnels as publics works maintenance and rehab budgets continue to shrink. I seem to recall some promise four or five years ago by some guy running for public office to spend huge amounts of money rebuilding the nations infrastructure.
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A suspect has been identified
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