17.12.2019

Texas crawler crane over

A crawler crane overturned yesterday in Corpus Christi, Texas, while carrying out a tandem lift.

The two cranes were lifting a large concrete beam into place on the Harbor Bridge Replacement Project when the one crane was subjected to a side loading that tipped it over sideways. Thankfully no one was injured in the incident.

A spokeswoman for the main contractor, Flatiron Dragados, said: “We received the news of this incident at 2:40pm and can confirm that no injuries were reported, and that investigators are on site to determine what happened.”
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We will update this item if and when we receive more information.

Vertikal Comment

Tandem lifts can be extremely complex manoeuvres when the load, such as a beam like this, has to be slewed into position. They need a great deal of planning, precision and management. All too often on jobs such as this they are treated as routine lifts, which is when things can go badly wrong.

At least in this case no one was seriously hurt, and hopefully lessons will be learnt.