In article , Don Murray
says...

So, what I think happened is that his load shifted. You see the way the
sling goes through the 2 doors, I think it slid to the back side
windows, causing a shock load, tipping the crane over.

Interesting theory. The second pick by the green crane supports it,
because it's obvious the car wants to be nose-heavy and the sling
wants to slide back as far as it can, to the rear of the front windows.

So the sequence of events might be: load is tail-heavy from all the
water in the passenger compartment, and the slings (which are rigged
midway in the windows or even a bit to the front) are heavily loaded
and stable in position. As the water runs out, the car becomes
more and more nose heavy, and lighter as well. Eventually the
friction of the sling on the metal is not enough to keep them
in place, and the car drops into a nose-down attitude. That in and
of itself won't make the crane tip because the net load is the
same - but as you say, the shock of the slings coming up hard
on the pillars could be enough if the crane were right at the
hairy edge.

I don't think the stones at the edge of teh quay gave away,
and I do wonder what happened to one of the men at the front of
the crane, who's gone after the splash - the one wearing
a blue jacket and tan trousers.

The people in the shots move around a *lot* between the third
and fourth (4th being the tipover) shots which implies to me
that either they realized that something was going on, and
all moved back, or that the entire tipover happened in slow
motion. I bet there could have been a shot of the crane
on its side, teetering on the edge, if the cameraman had
owned a slightly faster camera!

Jim


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