14.01.2009

Crane rolls

A mobile crane rolled down a bank yesterday in Scotland after taking the wrong route to a job. The crane an 80 tonne Liebherr All Terrain, owned by GBK crane hire, had apparently carried out a lift loading a vessel onto a truck.

The operator was then asked if he would also offload the vessel at another site – the IBM complex at Greenock. He was given instructions on how to get to the new location but the instructions took him up a narrow single track road which then gave way under the weight of the crane.
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The crane is reported to have rolled twice before coming to rest

The crane rolled over twice down an embankment before coming to a rest in a field which is near Inverkip. Thankfully the operator was not seriously injured although he was clearly shaken up.
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The crane is still lying in the field

The crane is still in the field awaiting recovery, which will not be easy.

Vertikal Comment

There appears to have been an increase in such accidents, where cranes of this size by plan or by accident end up on narrow country roads with steep drop offs on the one side.

Given the high axle loads allowed in the UK the chances of the verge giving way or the crane slipping into a ditch are quite high. In this case the information we have been sent suggests that the second part of the job was not pre planned and the route therefore not mapped out by the crane company.

Hopefully the client is well insured?