I don't know a great deal about the specifics of that installation (a friend of a colleague ran the build of the Arrivee for a few years) but a single glance from the side would lead pretty much anyone working in the industry to the same succinct diagnosis. It is a one word technical term beginning with 'f'. The bus was driven into the gantry while it was lowered, they attempted to raise the gantry to release the bus but the external structure of the gantry was either torn off the horizontal beam or became caught on the bus. I've been responsible for a couple of automated structures that work above the public's heads and I've had things crash into them and I've had to get them up and running with the public present. It's a horribly pressured situation and many people have an immediate urge to remove any obstacle in order to get everything back to normal which often causes further problems. In the worst case - catastrophic collapse, death, mayhem. In this instance deflating the tyres might be the exact thing to do but it would be completely pointless if the gantry wasn't secured first to stop it descending with the bus as its tyres were let down. 15 minutes would be about the bare minimum for getting the show back on the road in a situation like this and that would require identifying all the issues, coming up with a solution to each of them and executing a plan and everything working out as expected first time. Thinking about it they did pretty well and I wouldn't be surprised if the scenario was covered in their incident plans. The finish at a dodgy corner three km out was a bit suspect though. I think that would have led to even more carnage.
Anyhow, I'm not discounting a fresh, angry Cav being able to get back on before the finish.
