NTSB officials impressed with state's response to 35W bridge collapse

Federal transportation officials say the state's response to the 35W Bridge collapse is an example of how similar disasters should be handled in the future.

The National Transportations Safety Board (NTSB) will host a conference this week where first responders from Minnesota will exchange information with other first responders from around the country.

NTSB spokesman Erik Grosof said he was impressed with the way Minnesota law enforcement and first responders cooperated in the days and weeks after the bridge collapse.

"That was a huge event and we felt that it would be a very good case study for a large scale urban disaster that did not involve an airplane," he said. "The way they stood up to assist the families involved in that disaster, both from the diving recovery operations to the daily briefings that the police and the sheriff had with those families, were almost textbook in my opinion."

NTSB officials also plan to highlight other recent disaster responses including the U.S. Airways crash landing in the Hudson River and the Colgan commuter plane that crashed outside Buffalo last Februrary.