Crane Accidents

A four axle AT crane overturned at a Shell facility in New Plymouth, New Zealand earlier today, no one was injured in the incident.The crane owned, by Titan crane hire, was working at the Shell Todd tank farm when it went over. It is not clear what caused the crane to lose stability, the outriggers appear to have been properly set with wood mats under each jack.

Two cranes tipped over yesterday in separate incidents in the state of Vermont, in one a boom came down on a store. The first was a large National Crane boom truck owned Vermont Structural buildings of St Albans which overturned as it was preparing to lift a one tonne steel beam in the town of Georgia.

Work was underway on lowering concrete pads to form the foundation of a facility associated with the project when, for an unknown reason, a crane unit tipped over at about 9:30 a.m., said Greg Dobrowolski, special projects manager for the City of Dawson Creek. He said the driver of the crane was taken to hospital with unknown injuries.

The crane driver involved in the ‘run-away’ crane that killed a farmer has been acquitted by a jury of any blame. Allan Woodrow was acquitted in under an hour at Bradford Crown Court of causing the death of Colin Chew by dangerous driving on March 26, 2009, and an alternative charge of causing his death by careless or inconsiderate driving.

A lattice crane boom came down across two or three parked cars in Fayetteville, North Carolina yesterday. The 110 ton crawler crane, owned by Buckner Heavylift Cranes of Graham, North Carolina, was rented to LeChase Construction Services and was working on the town’s multi storey car park, lifting steel beams, when the accident occurred.

A fatal crane accident at BHP Billiton’s iron ore operations at Port Hedland in Western Australia’s Pilbara region has suspended operations at the facility while an investigation is carried out.

A 450 tonne All Terrain crane went over on a wind farm in Denmark last week dropping the rotor blades of a turbine it was helping to repair.

A man has died after a crane dropped a concrete panel on him in Kitchener, Ontario, just west of Toronto, Canada yesterday, it was the second incident on the site in two weeks. The man aged 42 suffered severe head injuries when the concrete slab fell as it was being lifted off of a truck by a tower crane. The ministry of labour suggested that poor rigging may have been to blame. The company responsible for the site is Tricar Developments.

The superstructure of a tower crane broke free at the Mercedes Benz stadium in Stuttgart on Saturday seriously injuring the operator. The flat top crane was rigged on a 14 metre tower and was working on the conversion of the historic 1933 40,000 seat mutipurpose stadium to a 60,000 seat football stadium.

A crawler crane operator died at JaxPort in Jacksonville, Florida on Saturday in an accident that occurred while dismantling a large port crane that had been retired and sold. The old container/gantry crane had been purchased by a company that employed a contractor to dismantle and remove it from the port.