08.03.2009

A weekend of crane accidents

Our email and message service was running overtime this weekend with at least four crane accidents reported.

Fatal accident in Kuala Lumpur

The most serious occurred in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, when the cable on crane used to hoist materials snapped dropping its load from the 22nd floor of a 38-storey office building under construction at Jalan Bangsar Utama, yesterday.

The load landed on two Bangladeshi men aged between 30 and 40 working on the ground floor, both were badly crushed and died at the scene.

Crawler in the drink

Another happened in Margate City, New Jersey, when an old crawler crane slid off of a barge it was working from, while construction a new bulkhead. No one was hurt in the incident, although the coastguard was concerned over the pollution caused from its oil and fuel tanks.
Please register to see all images

The crane slid off the barge and ended up in the water

Please register to see all images

Polution was a concern

Please register to see all images

A large RT crane was called in to remove the crawler but the boom was cut off first

The barge is reported to have tilted dislodging the crane last Thursday, its operator left it wedged between the barge's deck and the old bulkhead, with the idea to deal with the problem on Friday. However sometime later the barged moved further back and dumped the crane into the water.

It was successfully cut up and removed over the weekend.

Outtrigger set ups

The other two reports concern classic outrigger set up problems, in one a Grove RT58B cab down Rough Terrain crane tipped after one of its canitlever outrigger cylinders appears to have given way while lifting a pair of pontoons into the water at the Talbert Channel in Huntington Beach, California.
Please register to see all images

The RT58B tipped at Huntngdon Beach

Please register to see all images

The pontoons that were being lifted

Please register to see all images

One of the outriggers punched through the ground.

We understand that the operator was not seriously injured. The crane was working on a dredging project to open up the channel to let fresh ocean water into the wetlands of Huttingdon Beach State Park. It was operating on sandy ground with no outrigger mats.

The final report we received came from Miami, where a truck crane lifting an old boat out of the water at Marathon Marina, tipped over onto an adjacent boat when one of its outriggers punched through the dock into what has been reported as an old septic tank.
Please register to see all images

The crane's boom came down on an adjacent boat

The crane fell over onto a 42 foot Hatteras boat moored alongside the derelict boat being lifted. The Hatteras sank under the weight of the crane. The owner of the boat is reported to have said that he had just purchased it and had not yet registered or insured it!
Please register to see all images

One of the cranes rear outriggers punched through the dock - apparently into an old septic tank

Photographs suggest that no outrigger mats had been used.

Crane fatality at petrochem plant

A fifth accident has been reported concerning a fatality at a Total Oil petrochemical plant near Port Aurthur, Texas, have not been confirmed.

Early reports suggest that the man died yesterday after he was struck by a load that fell from a crane working in the plant.