This is crazy. Basically cables were pulling out for months and years and no one raised the alarm? In many industries that could be a criminal or career ending malpractice. Are the "contracted engineers" liable?
On Nov 19 2020, NPR was already reporting that "Sean Jones, Director for the Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate at the NSF, said the telescope will be dismantled. ... after receiving ... the engineering assessments, we have found no path forward that would allow us to do so safely..." https://www.npr.org/2020/11/19/936677582/world-renowned-arec...
In retrospect, it seems that, -at its age- the design got in the way of repairs. The scope made possible a lot of great finds in its day, but it'd become too weak to save.
I wouldn’t jump to the conclusion that the consulting engineer was incompetent. Sometimes a bureaucrat tells you to sharpen your pencils and come back with the answer That fits the budget they have if you want to keep your professional services contract going.
It seems unlikely that UCF had adequate time and resources to review and understand the Arecibo Telescope's original 1963 design, the 1974 upgrade, the structural inspection and maintenance records produced for nearly 50 years, [...] and the key factors, such as the wire breaks and cable pullout of the sockets and their significance on the strength and integrity of the structure.
The measured cable pullout may have appeared "normal" to [the UCF staff] and was not on their radar as signs of structural distress. The lack of concern may be because a small cable pullout was present from the beginning, and no one in authority had previously raised an alarm
But yeah, seems weird no-one of the contractors tried to raise an alarm.
Discontinuity could explain problems like this readily.
And what if they did? Then what? My guess is the conversation went something like this:
"Okay, cables are pulling out. Raising this issue will not magically make money appear to fix it as nobody wants to fund this. Tell me, how much do you like your job? If you flag this, you may lose your job directly and if the project gets shut down you may lose your job indirectly. So, how about we bury this as much as possible, cross our fingers and bank as much money as possible in the meantime, eh?"