http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rtEjlpP60M

Holy crap! I hope that one guy that was yelling lived... not good

I fully realize it's easy to "armchair quarterback" these situations but wouldn't it make sense to release the load when this is beginning to happen? Does the operator not have the sensation of tipping? Are there warnings? Even a destroyed load has to be cheaper than this outcome.

Not an operator, only an interested bystander,

Rob

Rob, I have wondered that myself for many years. Crane after crane collapse and they still go down with the load.

There must be an explosive cable cutting mechanism where the cable is cut as soon as the crane is going out of limits. It is absolutely retarded to operate those heavy machines w/o it.

That was one horrible accident. It was fortunate (and perhaps a miracle) that no one was injured badly or worse in this mishap. No doubt, an investigation into why this happened will take place. Not knowing the lifting plan, positioning of the crane, radius of said load (which looks like a box girder being lifted for placement atop the pier seen to the right), possible wind conditions and the levelness and stability of the ground, it is hard to say exactly what caused this. I won't even begin to speculate what the chain of events were leading up to the collapse. I was wondering why the crane was being walked backwards, to the point that the rear of the crawlers were beyond the timber mats.

As far as being able to drop such a load to avoid an accident in this case, I believe that it might have been impossible to do once the tipping began, first because, the operator probably didn't feel the machine as first began tipping forward. It appears from the video, that the tip began rather slowly; the very first sensation of movement might not have been sensed until it was too late. And, if I am not mistaken (correct me if wrong) this crane might not have free-fall on the main hoist drums, and given the many parts of line in the block, the load could not be lowered fast enough to unload the crane before it tipped.

In any case, a tragic case, and a reminder of the dangers involved in heavy picks.

Somtimes like in this case a floating tray, say you cut the load then you would have the high boom angle and the height of the tray pulling backeards on the machine. So it probably would have dropped the load and then went over backwards. What a lot of people who are not around cranes if you have a lot of parts on the block it does not move fast at all you can cable down but you probably dont have time to get the load down.

Jason

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