31.03.2006

Leo 50 given clean bill of health

Teupen has informed its customers that the Leo 50 has been fully cleared to go back into service. This follows an earlier instruction to all owners to remove them immediately from service, while it carried out a detailed investigation into the cause of a fatal accident in Belgium.

While the cause of the Belgian accident is not clear, the company says that it is now satisfied that the accident was not caused by a design or production weakness. As a result it has cleared the machines to go back to work.

It is still working with, Maes the owner of the machine and the Belgian authorities, in order to try and clarify the chain of events that led to the accident.

The Leo 50 has two long telescoping boom sections that articulate, in this accident something caused the telescopic sections of both booms to retract at high speed, following failure of the two telescope systems.
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The Leo 50 belonging to Maes after the accident

One of the failures could possibly have created a sufficient impact shock to have caused the other to fail, but which failed first is unknown. The chain system in the top boom for example has a 19 to one safety factor requiring some very high forces to cause such a breakage.

It is possible that one of the large tree limbs being cut struck the machine in such a way that it created such an exceptional impact, but while there are deformations to the structure it is hard to relate them directly to such an incident.

The investigation continues.

Vertikal Comment

No matter what unusual circumstances caused this accident, if the two men had been wearing harnesses, they would have suffered injuries, but they would have had a strong chance of survival.

It is about time the wearing of harnesses was made a legal requirement on boom lifts.

See original story March 27th