My question is... WTF were tourists doing on the damned thing in gale force winds?
" It's the mode of failure that makes it a non-starter for me. Steel bends. Wood cracks. You get warnings of impending failure. Glass? It just shatters."
To be sure, they're not sticking a flattened out drinking glass up there and calling it good. My guess is that the panels are laminated safety glass, probably several laminations.
Even if all of the glass laminations shattered at once, which is highly unlikely, the laminate binder would keep the panels in one piece, just like with a windshield.