29.04.2024

Bridge collapse strikes crane

A mobile crane working on a bridge in Majadahonda, on the north west side of Madrid was struck by a falling bridge component which caused its boom base section to buckle pulling the extended boom over the rear.

The incident occurred on Saturday April 20th, during the construction of the Roza Martín footbridge in Majadahonda, on the north west side of Madrid. The crane - a three axle Sany from the Aguado rental fleet - had been working on the bridge installing some of the support cables. Having completed its work, the crane was given the all clear to move off, the operator slewed the superstructure over the front of the crane in order to stow the boom and move off, while the installation crew continued its work on the bridge.

A few minutes later, the main mast - which resembles a pole - suddenly went over due to a failure with its foundation anchors. As it went over, the 30 tonne mast/pole slammed into the crane’s boom from the side causing it to buckle. The operator was apparently treated for some minor grazes but was unhurt and as far as we know there were no other injuries on site. The incident could have been so much worse had the mast struck the crane cab or the boom landed come down on a nearby roundabout where cars were passing.

The following news report shows a little more from the scene.


Aguado has issued a statement:
"First of all, it is important to highlight that there have been no personal injuries in this accident. The event that caused the bridge mast and its elements to fall occurred due to circumstances that are currently being investigated by the competent authorities and specialised technicians. Currently, it has been confirmed that the operator had finished positioning some cables on the bridge and the crane was released of any load when suddenly the 30 tonne main mast fell onto the crane boom, causing all the obvious damage. It has been confirmed that the support pillars of the main mast of the bridge failed and as a consequence it collapsed in such an unfortunate way that it fell right on top of the crane boom. Fortunately, no one was injured in the accident."

"It is important to emphasise that neither Aguado nor Sany have any responsibility in relation to this accident, and that neither the crane nor its operator caused, or had anything to do with it. Both Aguado and Sany adhere to the highest standards of safety and quality in all their operations, and we are committed to fully cooperating with the authorities and parties involved in the investigation to clarify the circumstances of the accident."


Vertikal Comment

This incident has/had become conflated with another incident, which occurred a few days earlier at a nearby water treatment plant, in which a man lost his life. We were also caught out by the conflation of these two separate and unrelated incidents when we originally published this item.

We did, however, highlight and question several issues from the information we had received, and which was published in parts of the local press, clearly we now know that we were right to have done so. While none of the information we published about the crane was untrue … the fact that one of the incidents involved a fatality and one did not is bad, especially as we constantly aim to be better than this, and having raised questions should have dug deeper.

What this error does highlight though is the importance of getting the facts of such an incident out into the open, when one of your pieces of equipment is involved, rather than waiting for others to tell the story often with a different version of the events.

As social media grows we can all expect more of this type of confusion. At the Vertikal Press our whole aim with accident reporting is to be an antidote to such misinformation and rumour and to ensure that the facts of any incident are clarified and correct. In this case, while none of the facts that we originally published about the crane were wrong - we could have done better. The only thing to say is that as always, we will learn from our mistakes.