Ho no. A forum member showed here this crane a while back and it was almost to its max on boom if i can remember it had 500 ft + of boom with no derric. What a mess.

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SOMETHING IS BETTER THAN NOTHING.

http://s1185.photobucket.com/home/vipyfz2008/index

http://www.youtube.com/user/vipyfz?feature=mhee



luis.

Didn't go backwards at all.

http://www.nbcnews.com/video/horrifying-nyc-crane-collapse-caught-on-camera-616920643917

Paul R

I think that crane was relatively new to. Sad to see a big Liebherr like that

I don't know that much about crane operations but would the weather have caused that? I find it hard to believe that a couple of inches of snow would cause such a catostrophic failure.

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http://www.twitter.com/samcat116

The person in the black car (BMW) did not live, RIP. 2 buildings were hit in the fall. 2-3 people were injured seriously with non life threatening injuries. They were attempting to secure the crane and the permits for extending the crane were only given yesterday.

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- Kyle

It seems as though the boom and jib were raised yesterday, and with the weather getting bad (high winds), they were being lowered. From the pictures, there was probably a little added weight from the wet snow, and if the wind was blowing from behind the crane, there could have been enough moment to have caused the overturning. Just my opinion, of course, and the facts will emerge from the official investigations. Terrible and tragic for the fatality and injuries.
Something must have led those guys to be recording the crane. Those noises (not the beeps) were pretty unsettling.

It was said in the news reporting that they were given permission to erect the boom to max length yesterday and they were in the process of securing the boom when the accident happened. I would assume that means lowering it because I cannot see a safe way to secure this boom while raised.

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- Kyle

I think this is all true; the boom doesn't have to lay flat to be secure; it just has to have the jib tip on the ground. As cookie guys know from booming up our models, what Brandon said is also accurate.

Hi all,it looks like a LR-1300 I'm no crane operator but I know even when you have that much boom on a crane even in 1-50 scale she is very tipsy unless you have the Derrick and ballast on the back a very sad tradegy

Yes, my thoughts are with those injured and the families of those killed and injured. Likewise my thoughts are with the operator, involved staff and owners of the involved companies.

I watched and read the various releases during the day. The crane is confirmed as a 330 US ton Liebherr LR 1300. It was in maximum boom configuration, luffing, totaling 564 (Liebherr web site) or 565 feet (released length) and was inspected by the city yesterday when placed in that configuration. The crane was being secured at the time of the collapse. The boom collapsed forward with the main boom boomed well up. That position was sufficiently vertical to flip the house, carbody and tracks upside down on top of the boom foot. Note, the drives on the crawler started facing rearward providing additional rear weight but are now facing forward and the carbody is upside down. The house followed the boom indicating that the boom was intact sufficiently to act as a 564 foot lever. The timber mats clear of snow behind where the crane came to rest would indicate that it had not been walked from its original position. The ownership of the machine and the company with operational responsibility were publicly released and the former is visible in some photos. The timber base appears to remain in position.

The logging electronics on the machine may be key to determining what happened. The weather forecast called for 15 to 18 mile per hour wind per published reports. Likewise the crane's owner is reported to have a policy that the crane be secured at 20 miles per hour. The reported maximum wind load per the manufacturer is 25 miles per hour. Gusts were reported as high as 29 miles per hour. If one of those gusts hit when attempting to boom the luffing boom down, it could thrown the boom out of chart relative to the crane's machinery deck and lower structure. The boom angles and wind speed as logged will verify this. If so, this is a true act of god while the various personnel on the ground were attempting to clear people and space to land the luffing boom. The photos seemingly support such a finding, but again the machines logging devices will help determine what happened.