Crane collapse in seattle

Security camera that was pointing west towards the tower crane.

Any more word on this mess?

They cleared Omega Morgan but there are three other companies involved and nothing has been said about any of them. Plenty of people are saying that the pins were pulled but nothing is official.

Thanks

It sure looked like pulled pins to me in the video. The operator never had a chance. I wonder if the one whom pulled the pins made it?

There apparently wasn't an operator in it. It appears it was two members of the dismantling crew that were killed. At this point nothing has been made public about the who, what and why the event occurred.

John C. said:

They cleared Omega Morgan

Click to expand...

Actually they cleared Seaberg, who supplies the operators on day to day operations. Omega-Morgan, NW Tower Cranes, GLY and Morrow have not been cleared.

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattl...ion-into-one-firm-involved-in-crane-collapse/

Nice catch. I saw that article awhile back and crossed the names. I saw a part of another article in the business journal that mentions Omega but I don't carry that subscription anymore so it won't let me see the rest.

The results of the investigation by the state is in and here is the news report about on the local Fox television station.

https://q13fox.com/2019/10/17/serio...olation-led-to-deadly-seattle-crane-collapse/

People call these types of events accidents. Read the report and decide for yourself if this was accidental, incompetence or willful negligence. The police investigators have been handed the case now and must decide.

So the investigation pretty miuch confirmed what everyone had already hinted at on the basis of the photographic evidence.

That wasn't an accident IMHO, I don't see even how much time might be potentially saved by pulling all (or almost all) the pins first, rather than pulling them section by section as the crane is brought down. You have to have people up there to rig each section as it is removed so why not pull the pins for the section at that point.?

Agree on the term accident being too wide a terminology for that kind of disaster.

If I decide to wear a black hoodie and black pants and wander across an interstate highway during a rain storm on a moonless night and get splated by a KW doing 70 mph is that an accident? That about sounds as smart as what I as an untrained crane man see this one being.

Might as well lay on ground under a D-10 with an air wrench and start zipping out the belly pan bolts!

I don't know how they do it in the US but the construction company I worked for some years back had a "tower crane crew" who travelled the length & breadth of the country doing nothing but erect, climb up/down, & dismantle tower cranes. They were also the guys who did the 6-month & annual inspections. I worked with them for a while and would've trusted them with my life.

I maybe be wrong but I get the impression that the ironworkers who died were sent from the local union hall in response to a request for manpower to work with the guy from the crane company. TBH that way of working doesn't fill me with a lot of confidence compared to what I was used to years back.

Just out on the hotel collapse in New Orleans they are going to explosively drop those two tower cranes as too dangerous to try to dismantle.

Nige said:

I don't know how they do it in the US but the construction company I worked for some years back had a "tower crane crew" who travelled the length & breadth of the country doing nothing but erect, climb up/down, & dismantle tower cranes. They were also the guys who did the 6-month & annual inspections. I worked with them for a while and would've trusted them with my life.

I maybe be wrong but I get the impression that the ironworkers who died were sent from the local union hall in response to a request for manpower to work with the guy from the crane company. TBH that way of working doesn't fill me with a lot of confidence compared to what I was used to years back.

Click to expand...

Morrow, The crane company that owns the crane is a branch of a conglomerate that owns most of the tower cranes in the U.S. They operate under various names about the U.S. They use erection and dismantling crews that are trained in erection, jumping them (up and down) and dismantling. They normally do the work on a weekend when the job is empty or nearly so. I think they get to confident in what they think they can get away with and take shortcuts. The old, lets get it done in 4 hours and get paid for our 8 attitude. Then when the **** hits the fan the shortcuts kills them. Over 90 percent of toppled towers in the U.S. fell during erection, jacking, or dismantling. The rest were bad storms. I can not think of one that went down due to load. The vast majority of the crews follow the rules and manufacturers instruction very carefully and live to be old and crabby like many of us. Guys like you worked with Nige. Then you get a wildcat crew like this one and this happens. I don't know what the failure percentage rate is considering there are thousands of hammerhead tower cranes in the U.S. going up and down all the time. Any failure is big news and any failure is to many. Not really sure why the G.C. is also always held liable as they have no control over the tower crane erection crew. It is part of the crane rental. They did their part correctly when they hired the tower crane company with their "experts" to dismantle it. But then our legal system and the lawyers always blame the ones they think got the deepest pockets. Then the contractor gets stuck for all the collateral damage on top of it.

I came across Morrow during the last construction job in the Caribbean. Two tower cranes out of their Houston depot were used on the job. IIRC they just sent "a guy" to superintend the erection & dismantling and we had to supply the rest of the labour from our crane crew. I may be wrong on that though.