An All Terrain crane travelling on a main road in the UK lost one of its counterweight slabs last week.
The crane, from the Ainscough fleet, was travelling north on the A249 Detling Hill close to the Kent Showground, near Maidstone on Wednesday when a counterweight slab dropped from the rear of the crane.
We understand that no other vehicles were involved or affected and no one was hurt, apart from being delayed a little.
Ainscough has a depot in Maidstone, so it looks as though the crane was heading to a job when the incident occurred. It could have been a nasty incident had a car been travelling too close behind.
Following an initial investigation, Ainscough has provided the following statement to alert other crane owners/operators to take steps to avoid the same thing happening to them.
“On Wednesday, 29th October, a Liebherr LTM 1100 Mobile Crane was travelling on the A249
Detling Hill, near Maidstone, when the rear fixed counterweight detached from the crane and
landed on the carriageway."
"Our investigations are still ongoing, but the primary cause is that one of the main fixed
counterweight securing bolts failed. This caused the counterweight to drop on one side, which
in turn resulted in the failure of the other main fixing bolt due to lateral loading."
"Although this is an extremely rare event, we do have a specific, periodic service action to
remove, inspect, refit and retorque all counterweight fixing bolts and any associated stabilising
bolts."
"Whilst the crane in question was compliant with our policy, we have now initiated an immediate
service campaign to inspect the fixing bolts on all cranes that have fixed rear counterweight slabs."
"Notwithstanding the outcome of the investigation, we are reviewing our criteria for this
maintenance action in conjunction with the manufacturer, to mitigate any further chance of recurrence."
"We would therefore encourage all mobile crane owners to ensure that the inspection of these bolts is included within regular maintenance activities.”
Comments