24.07.2012
Another crane slips over
An eight axle All Terrain crane overturned last week on a wind farm in Wöhrden Schleswig-Holstein, northern Germany.
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The overturned crane
The crane, a Liebherr owned and operated by crane and heavy transport company Regel, was rigged with counterweight, jib and Y-Guy suspension system. It slipped off the road while the operator was moving between locations and was reversing. Heavy rains had exasperated the situation, the operator was slightly injured.
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The standing water gives an indication of the sogginess of the ground
Two large cranes were brought in, along with several truck-loads of hardcore and large outrigger mats, to rescue the fallen crane.
Those involved blamed time and cost pressures involved with turbine erection work along with the heavy rains and narrow roads in the area.
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The two rescue cranes do their work
bruce h
once again management was able to slide their appendage out of labor an blame them once more for their greed. Damn lay operators won't do as they are told!!!!!!!!!
Its very easy to blame the 'pressures associated with wind turbine work' as the root cause for this incident.
If a crane is de-rigged to road travel configuration, and DRIVEN from base to base, these incidents wont happen. It is virtually impossible to reverse a partially rigged crane of this size on narrow roads as the rear axles WILL try to find the camber of the road themselves, especially when the conditions are not solid.
In my opinion, the road looks fine, and sufficient for 12t axle limits when driven with care and as per manufacturers instructions. This is operator error, pure and simple. Moving large cranes on narrow roads partially rigged is asking for trouble, an operator might, if they are lucky, get away with it many times but someday their luck will run out !
A similar incident happened to me as a young operator when I 'thought' i was invincible, so I am not being over harsh in blaming the operator here.
I would hazard a guess that, like me, this guy has learned his lesson and wont let this happen him again.
Michael Brown
Si travelling with counter weights and jib? Were there banksmen supervising the movement? Probably not!! Work time dead lines cannot come before common sense! So what has happened to the build process now LOL