Fatal Crane Collapse in Manhattan

A construction crane fell in Manhattan about an hour ago.

At least one was killed.

The crane – which was swinging a wrecking ball — toppled over on Worth Street between West Broadway and Church Street at 8:24 a.m., crushing several cars parked on the street, according to witnesses and fire officials.

They have some images of it laying on top of cars. It landed on its cab and the death was a worker. Based on how the crane landed, you might almost speculate it might have been the driver. Sad.

a reply to: ketsuko

It is a miracle that more people were not injured during this collapse, and that the collapse of the crane did not involve any structural impact with the surrounding buildings. It certainly seems to have fallen along the road fairly straight, which means it is unlikely that it hit a building on the way down.

What I would like to know, is what caused the crane to topple over? Normally a crane operator has to ensure that the load never extends out too far from the centre of gravity, and also that the swing of the ball is never too extreme for the structure of the crane to withstand. It seems to me that the thing just went over under the weight of the wrecking ball, but whether it did so on the backswing, or on the attack, and how the collapse was caused...that all remains to be seen.

I would be very interested to see updates for this article, as an when they appear.

Looks like a sign for Pexx near the site?

At Pexx, Inc. we live by our motto "We Get It Done!"

Pexx is a Texas construction company that specializes in communication tower construction.

a reply to: ketsuko

I doubt they'll ever use explosives to demolish inner city buildings again. Why they use wrecking balls is beyond me, though. Its dangerous, unpredictable and when they screw up the crane can collapse. See?

Some footage of them using a similar crane elsewhere.And imo, how they should do it.

a reply to: intrptr

So... Some sort of massive cutting wire? Like a cheese wire for buildings? How were those demolitions accomplished?

The news was reporting that people had noticed a broken cable on the crane. I got the impression from the report it had been idle for the past week.

originally posted by: TrueBrit
a reply to: intrptr

So... Some sort of massive cutting wire? Like a cheese wire for buildings? How were those demolitions accomplished?

Watch the very end of the video. A floor or two higher up is weakened and then 'pulled on' by tractors below. That initiates the collapse, the dynamic load of the weight above crushing the building to the ground in a progressive, top down, pancake collapse.

thars astounding. I've been an equipment operator for 16 years now, have ran and worked around cranes much of my career. I have seen a few cranes go over, and in crane certification class we saw pictures and watched videos of crane accidents.

That's the first time I've seen someone completely flip a crawler upside down.

a reply to: intrptr

Ah, I see. So the supports anchoring the upper floors to the lower half of the building are deliberately compromised, and then the weight of those upper floors is used to crush the ones below as they fall? Fascinating!

It certainly seems an effective method of pulling the buildings down!

a reply to: TrueBrit

It certainly seems an effective method of pulling the buildings down!

All at once, too, instead of knocking about with massive balls, lol.

a reply to: intrptr

Indeed... A zero compensation situation.

it had too much stick in it......ls418......maybe......one million pounds capability......almost....the wind might have been gusting, huh!!

Sounds prophetic where the crane that is supposed to point to Heaven has no "Worth" in terms of the fake faith that is spoken throughout many "Churches".

Hence it is not 'Worth' going to any US 'Church' now as the link to Heaven has now been severed.

Our Mayor just gave a briefing and said that the person killed was someone sitting in a parked car as opposed to initial reports which stated it was a worker. Considering the density of that part of Manhattan it's pretty amazing that one death and 3 injuries is the total casualty list. When you look at the size of that thing it certainly looks like it could/should have been a lot more deadly when coming down.

I'm less than a mile away from there and for the last half a day or so it's been quite windy and we've had some freezing rain and snow. I know nothing about cranes so I can't say if that's a contributing factor or not, but it's pretty nasty out.

ETA: to Rapha's post above... Worth Street is named for this guy. Same person Fort Worth TX is named for.

My dad says it looks like he might have over extended the crane. Not sure though.

Very heavy wet snow fell in New York City and Long Island this morning.

About 12 inches where I'm at.

Trees are being weighed down, power lines and I imagine easily a not so well secured crane can topple over with the heavy slushy-sticky snow that isn't "blowing around" as it would in a drier blizzard type of snow.

edit- add to that some gusty wind that blows the slushy-snow laden object it's what I think may have contributed to the collapsed crane this morning.

Theres a video up on tmz that shows the crane tiping over. The crane has a pretty long luffing jib installed. With that setup the boom is generally left nearly straight up and the work is performed with the jib. In the video he is booming down the jib, then the crane begins to tip. If he was at a point of nearing the limit of his capacity a strong wind from the back could certainly take it over.

Since the main boom was nearly vertical the momentum during the fall brought the lower "crawler" up and over on its back.

Impressive wreck

link to tmz with video

wow....all he had to do was quarter the boom over the tip of the tracks......should have set up like that no matter what the tail swing limits or staging area limits are.

I suppose they were getting the boom down for weather.....with mobile towers just leave 'em up.....do it all the time since that Florida hurricane back in the 80's....leave the house brake off....let her spin when possible.....too scary for them in midtown, huh!!

De Blasio said construction work was halted on the building Thursday after operators decided to lower and secure the crane against winds, which gusted past 20 mph Friday morning.

“They were in the process of securing the crane ... actually preparing to bring it down, to secure it,” he said.

a reply to: ketsuko

holy #. #ty way to die