Tuesday, June 2, 2015

RIGGING FAILED: CRANE FELL ON BARGE



This unfortunate incident happened on the 5th of March 2015, when lifting a Terex Crane AC 35 L from a barge by means of a Manitowoc 4100 crawler crane positioning the Crane on the quay and is a prime example of what can go wrong, when no attention is paid to details when lifting a load and applying the rigging.

I would like to congratulate TOTAL with its detailed Incident Report (below) and clarifying what went wrong here. It was also fortunate that nobody got hurt and only material damage was encountered.  

By publishing this report, TOTAL has set an example for the Industry and hopefully this will be followed by others:  DO REPORT INCIDENTS AND ACCIDENTS AND PUBLISH THEM, SO WE CAN ALL LEARN FROM THE MISTAKES THAT STILL ARE  BEING MADE DAILY.

Take an example to the Airline crashes, which are investigated in detail by the NTSB and published in National Geography's Documentaries: "AIRCRASH INVESTIGATION" . The result being that proper measures are taken by Aircraft manufacturers (Design Changes), Airlines (Proper pilot training and education and maintenance instructions and procedures), Authorities (Rules and Regulations) to avoid these kind of accidents from happening again.  It has made the Airline Industry the safest transport industry in the world. If that was not the case, NOBODY WOULD EVER FLY AGAIN!!

We all should aim to a "Safer Transport, Offshore, Shipping, Civil & Lifting Industry" and report in detail what went wrong and why it went wrong, AS THIS IS IN OUR OWN INTEREST!  

Remember the five W's:  WHO, WHEN, WHERE, WHY and  WHAT went wrong? and publish this in detail. I will publish all  reports,  which are sent to me (e-mail: heavyliftspecialist@gmail.com) on this website and strongly recommend you to send me any incident or accident which passes your path (If you wish, I will not reveal your identity).

Do not swipe it under the carpet!!  With todays communication means, like smartphones, unsafe contractors are exposed quickly. The only way you can proof that you are taking Safety seriously, is by publishing what went wrong and what you as a contractor have done in preventing this from happening again!

This incident could have been prevented so easily.  I strongly recommend to the Crane manufacturers, that they provide suitable lifting points on the outriggers of mobile cranes, as this is not the first time this has happened.
See below detailed incident report and learn from it!!