2stickbill
Senior Member
Shoot ol Pedro could take the P.U. down to Mexico and have it looking new in about a week.
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Wind Farm Accident Tehachapi CA?
- Thread starter tonka
- Start date
Shoot ol Pedro could take the P.U. down to Mexico and have it looking new in about a week.
Hoister
Active Member
All the tag lines in the world wont increase the load charts. Just at a glance, it looks like someone twisted that override key, but thats just my first impression. Improper setup, bad rigging, who knows? Could also be the operators werent on the same page, as these pieces are routinely handled with an assist crane. And hey, its a wind farm, wind could have helped this along too.
hudson39
New Member
i remember this, combination of wind and lowering the boom to much. once we got it vertical we cut the other crane loose, and tried to get it in position. good news nobody was hurt at all and the other crane was okay too.
Revxracer
Member
How much does the average wind tower weigh? (each tower section, cell, and blades)......
Hoister
Active Member
70-80k for the hub and blades together. The 80 meter towers anyway. Never built any though. Just brought them down for repairs.
The nacelles weigh about 80 tons , so it take a bit of iron to get it into the air.
They are using 18000's to do the 2nd, 3rd sections, nacelles and blades.
999's and 777's set the bottom sections. Plus there are a handful of 90 to 100 ton RT's running around .
They are using 18000's to do the 2nd, 3rd sections, nacelles and blades.
999's and 777's set the bottom sections. Plus there are a handful of 90 to 100 ton RT's running around .
Ronsii
Senior Member
- Joined
- Jun 26, 2011
- Messages
- 3,464
- Location
- Western Washington
- Occupation
- s/e Heavy equipment operator
Yes, this was the Oct. 1999 Tehachapi CA. accident. Link: http://www.wind-works.org/articles/Aagaard.html
Ronsii
Senior Member
- Joined
- Jun 26, 2011
- Messages
- 3,464
- Location
- Western Washington
- Occupation
- s/e Heavy equipment operator
Oops, I missed the part about the lattice tower I just remembered the pickup being crushed and the location and figured they were the same incident, sorry about the wrong info.
I know that the post is quite old but I noticed that there are no real answers posted. I was at ground zero on the end of a tag line when this accident occurred. So I thought I would fill everybody in on what happened.
First off there were no major injuries. The crane operator jumped out of the cab when it started to roll over and he twisted his knee. There were about 24 or 25 people in the fall zone when the accident occurred so we were quite lucky that there were no more injuries than that.
The main crane that rolled over was a triple 7 Manitowoc. The tail crane was a Kobelco but I do not remember what the model was. The lift was around 48 tons. The triple 7 crane was rated for this capacity but it had a very limited radius for this pick. The tower section was the base section for a GE 1.5 wind turbine. The rigging and rigging techniques were proper. We continued to use the same type of rigging and practices for the remainder of the job. We were erecting approximately 100 of these turbines total.
Everything was normal that morning. We picked the base up with 2 cranes horizontally to finish cleaning and touching up the paint on the bottom of the can. We then tripped the can into a vertical position just off of the right rear of the crane. We then proceeded to de-rig the tail rigging. Once this was complete the crane operator raised the load up until the bottom of the can was approximately 8 foot in the air. He then slowly proceeded to swing the load around behind the crane. I was running a tagline and the load was swinging towards me. I moved around up on to the pad with the concrete pedestal where the section was to be set between me and the crane. I was approximately 40 feet away from the crane. (In the first picture I was just this side of the water buffalo) The load did not seem to be real stable it was swinging around more than it should have. We had some low level winds but well within chart for this pick.
The operator stopped swinging the load and it swung back in towards the boom. The foreman and 2 of the other tagline operators pulled hard on the taglines. The can started to swing away from the crane at that point in time. Things kind of got fuzzy here but it appeared to me that the crane operator panicked when the load swung towards the crane and he started booming the load down. I heard a loud pop at that time come from the crane. I looked towards the crane and didn’t see anything to worry about. I have heard cranes pop rather loudly before when under heavy load so I wasn’t too concerned. I looked back at the load and noticed that the load seem to be coming down and moving away from the crane. About that time I heard an even louder pop and looked back at the crane. (It turned out later the pops I heard were the welds breaking on the stabilizer) It was obvious at that point in time that the crane was going to roll over. I dropped the rope and ran as fast as I could. I looked back over my shoulder as I was running and I saw the crane roll over and knock the DTA and pad mount transformer over as it rolled into it.
Immediately after the motion stopped I ran back to check on the crane operator. He was out of the cab shaken up but ok. I then heard a horn blowing continuous. I walked around the can and saw the pickup underneath the can. My heart went straight to my toes for fear that somebody was inside of the pickup. As scared as I was, I walked over and looked in and saw that nobody was in the pickup. What a relief it was to see nobody in there. The pickup actually belonged to the owner’s representative who was on site to watch the pick. There was a 10KW generator in the bed of the pickup that was about 3 to 4 inches thick after the fact.
When the crane boom came down it clipped the gantry on the Kobelco crane. It did some minor damage but not too much. Parts were ordered and replaced on the crane and we continued to use the Kobelco as a tail crane for the remainder of the job.
What caused the accident is purely my opinion based upon what I saw and my experience with heavy lifting and was caused by a combination of the following factors.
The operator apparently had very little critical lift experience.
The crane while rated for the lift was very close to the limits and gave no margin for error.
Inexperience on the part of the tag line operators pulling so hard on the load causing the swing reversal to be accelerated.
There was some speculation about wind gusts being a factor but when the accident was investigated the anemometers in the area recorded no wind or gusts that were outside the chart of the crane.
There was also some speculation about poor repairs on the crane because the welds on the rear stabilizer to the truck frame broke.
I believe the primary cause of the accident was the operator taking the load out of radius thus overloading the crane. I was told by the accident investigator that he could prove the load was 18 feet out of radius but he felt like it was closer to 25 feet out.
The prime contractor on the job was Balfour Beatty but the actual company performing the erection was a sub contractor. I’m not going to give their name since they have been sold out and the new owners have dramatically improved their safety record.
DirtHauler
Senior Member
It is GREAT to get some updates to go with these types of photos. Thank you for taking the time to fill in the blanks.
On the Kansas job they were using Maxim Crane, This was last summer 2011. All contractors were requires to remove their company logos on the vehicles and equipment. There were a few things that didn't have logos covered. So there were all kinds of stuff with duck tape , plastic, and plain white magnetic stuff covering logos
I asked why once, it was more or less because we can do it.
The only logos were magnetic BWEC on their stuff. As you can see by the crushed Ford. It is lacking the magnetic sign.
The photos like this are in the safety orientation , They told us that the truck was for the grout crew, The crew wasn't supposed to be in the lift area at the time of the lift.
I asked why once, it was more or less because we can do it.
The only logos were magnetic BWEC on their stuff. As you can see by the crushed Ford. It is lacking the magnetic sign.
The photos like this are in the safety orientation , They told us that the truck was for the grout crew, The crew wasn't supposed to be in the lift area at the time of the lift.
dwolfe
Member
Thanks for the post bowden, glad no one was hurt bad.