On 2014-11-21, Larry Jaques wrote:
On Thu, 20 Nov 2014 18:51:32 -0600, Ignoramus11173
wrote:

On 2014-11-21, Pete C. wrote:

Ignoramus11173 wrote:

Scary situation.

http://www.machinerymoverschicago.com/blog/Crane-Fail/

Wow! It's difficult to tell from the perspective in the picture, but it
looks to me like the crane was set excessively far away from the lift
point and had the boom at too shallow an angle, looking 45 degrees or
so.

[I added one more picture]

Yes, I agree with that. It was a risky lift and somehow or other, it
was riskier than they thought.

Yes, bad angle and probably a lot heavier than the crane operator
thought. That's a bad combination!

The crane looks new-ish, I would suppose that it could have a weight
reading from the pressure on the hydraulic winch.


A couple years ago I got to play with a 60T Grove moving 40' containers
and we had it setup only about 40' from the crane boom pivot point to
the lift point and the boom extended to give probably a 60 degree angle
with loads of around 12,000# for a container and a small amount of
contents.

I would have expected that commercial crane services , like that one,
should have load moment indicators and other tools to prevent such
incidents.

Yeah, the operator will probably get a heavy fine (if not loss of his
license) plus damages. Somebody wasn't paying attention. if the
crane owner hadn't maintained the rig, it may fall on him instead,
though. The investigation should be interesting. How many cranes now
have auto-recording equipment? Probably all the computerized models,
wot?


I hope that they had all kinds of insurance, now a big battle of
insurance companies will begin. I am glad that I am not a party to
that.

i