21.09.2018
CTE incident statement
CTE has issued a formal statement regarding the incident at Platformers day last Saturday which resulted in two men being airlifted to hospital.
Thank fully their injuries proved to be lighter than the first appeared and the men were soon discharged from hospital. The statement is published below in full and with zero edits.
“CTE MP 32.19 at Platformers’ Days”
“CTE S.p.A. informs its Customers and the Market that the causes of the incident occurred during Platformers' Days 2018 Show on the France Elevateur Deutschland Stand are to be attributed to an incorrect and non-agreed use of the prototype CTE MP 32.19, by a non CTE S.p.A. authorized operator, and not imputable to defects in the design or production of the platform.”
“As already known, the two operators which were in the basket suffered only minor injuries and were discharged quickly from Hospital.”
“The truck-mounted platform CTE MP 32.19, as well as all the other aerial platforms designed and produced by CTE S.p.A. over the last thirty years with the brands ZED, B-LIFT and TRACCESS, have been designed to meet the strictest international design and safety standards for work at height”
Click here to see the original report
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This failure is very similar to an accident in 2011 involving another machine produced by this company. The 43m boom section buckled and collapsed within 2.5 months from the small company purchasing. To avoid any future fatalities or injury I hope the authorities will now take note and carry out a full thorough investigation.
CTE should have some serious questions to answer. Both men were very fortunate this collapse was cushioned by the spider and both were wearing the appropriate lanyards, if not there would have most certainly been another fatality.
Editor’s note
The machine referred to above was a 43 metre Bizzocchi lift. It was working in Glasgow in 2012 on hire from a local company to One Stop Roofing, which was installing safety netting to scaffold. One man died and another was seriously injured The unit had its three section jib extended at the time and the third section of the boom buckled at the exit point from the second section.
The lift was previously owned by ES Access - the company was liquidated in 2011 - and Craig Services & Access acquired the machine from the administrator.
The truck mounted lift was subjected to a serious overload a few years earlier and was repaired in the Bizzocchi factory just before ES Access went into administration. The lift was eventually returned to the UK and sold by the administrator through a third party to Craig Services.
The lift then incurred more boom damage in 2011, when the second section buckled. The unit was fully inspected under the manufacturer's supervision, which indicated overloading as the cause and a repair which included the replacement of the failed section was, we understand, quoted for. However Craig Services decided not to accept the quote and collected the machine, arranging for a repair to be carried out elsewhere. Craig Services owner Craig Bentley was given the maximum prison sentence when the case went to trial in 2017 [[link:https://www.vertikal.net/en/news/story/27210/]]See maximum jail sentence for boom failure[[link]]
Damian Schuler
Longer, lighter, faster, higher...
Why does it still happen that unfinished or 'show-tuned' machines are still allowed to public exhibitions?
Tmayes
So basically what CTE are saying is our machines are so rubbish is a operator can break one by not doing much with it on a open day, if it can be broken on a demonstration day can you imagine what?s going to happen to it in the big scary wide world of construction?? You wouldn?t get me in one of these if it came gift wrapped.
Is this statement by CTE acceptable? Should it be possible for an operator to break a machine by operating it.
Where is the failsafe?
Totally agree with Big Booms. Also, I would not be so flippant with the remark that the operators only suffered minor injuries if I were CTE, there's a phrase that should have gone before that, it's by the grace of God.
Big Booms
Are they really blaming the operators? What are they saying the operators did to cause this? Operators who CTE said they were very close to in the initial statement after the incident. I find the statement totally unacceptable and very disrespectful to anyone who is involved with MEWPs of any type, CTE should be made to publish a full truthful statement. Could I ask the editors to comment on this statement?
Editor - See main editorial on home page