The Board sent an investigative team of 19 to the site of the collapse. The team has been inspecting areas that are accessible. A gyro stabilizer, high resolution camera mounted on a police helicopter has been used to looked at the superstructure on the north side of the bridge. Several tensile fractures were observed, but nothing that looked to be the initiating location.

NTSB is also working with the Federal Highway Administration to conduct a structural analysis of the bridge, using computational finite element analysis methods. Data collected at the accident scene, with the help of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's 3-D laser scanning device, will be used in refining the model which is based on original design drawings.