FLORIDA — Five years after the deadly collapse of Champlain Towers South in Surfside, Florida, Martin Langesfeld is still angry and seeking answers.
"I just want to know why it took five years to come to pretty much inconclusive answers. Where did the $40 million go into the investigations?" Langesfeld said.
Langesfeld's sister and brother-in-law were among the 98 victims who died when the oceanfront condominium crumbled to the ground in the shocking overnight 2021 collapse.
Last month, just days before the five-year remembrance, the National Institute of Standards and Technology released its most conclusive findings yet on what caused the building to crumble. The report pointed to failed connectors between garage columns and the pool deck, causing cracks to grow and loads to shift to columns that weren't strong enough.
According to the federal report, the problems started three weeks before the collapse, with investigators tracing issues back decades to deviations from the building's original designs.
Langesfeld, who has been an outspoken critic of the city and federal government's handling of the tragedy, isn't impressed with the findings.
"The collapse of the pool, we already knew this years ago, and the parking garage. This is nothing new, so I don't know why this is acting as if this is all new information. We knew this." Langesfeld said.
In the meantime, Allyn Kilsheimer, the engineer hired by the city of Surfside to independently investigate the cause of the collapse, is also speaking publicly about the government's latest findings.
"We agree that that concept is essentially where it started. We knew that a year and a half ago." Kilsheimer said.
But Kilsheimer questions some of the details.
"It's easy to say that the construction didn't follow the design drawings at the time, but where and how and how did it have anything to do with this collapse?" Kilsheimer said.
Kilsheimer, who we’ve spoken to several times since the tragedy, never finished his independent probe. A few years into his investigation, city commissioners terminated his contract because he couldn’t get the federal government to grant him access to certain evidence.
While Kilsheimer didn’t describe the termination as bitter, he feels bad that he never got to finish what he started.
"It ended, from my vantage point, without allowing me to do what I promised the real people in Surfside," Kilsheimer said.
Kilsheimer agrees with the government's overall assessment of what happened, but he questions the pre-collapse timeline outlined in the report that suggested the collapse began three weeks before the disaster.
"They must be a whole lot smarter than me, because I don't know how anybody could possibly determine that something started three weeks before, unless they're talking about some cracks that were reported months before," Kilsheimer said.
Kilsheimer doesn't think he’ll ever be asked to finish his independent investigation. But if he were, he says he would.
"I believe in doing what I promise," Kilsheimer said.
Langesfeld has no plans to end his hunt for answers — or his pursuit of accountability.
"Whoever had any part in this tragedy that killed 98 people must be held accountable," Langesfeld said.
To date, no criminal charges have been filed over the collapse. A spokesperson with the State Attorney's Office in Miami stated in an email that any criminal violations would have to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Still, Langesfeld isn’t giving up.
"I do it in my sister's name. She was an attorney, and she fought for justice and accountability. And I made a promise today that she was taking that I will do that on her behalf,” he said.
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