Biglorryblog's heart goes out to this Australian crane operator who apparently had only had this smart Liebherr 250-tonne crane worth a cool A$3m for nine-days before this happened....naturally BLB trusts the operators and site workers escaped without injury..(And if that's not the case let me know and I'll remove the blog).
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It seems the supports gave way on the first floor and the crane balanced on the remaining panel for around an hour then fell right through to the basement. I'm told it happened on Friday Morning 26/09 in Sydney.
You can clearly see where it's broken through the concrete layer here..
But for the moment it's still suspended on top. Now click through here for more..and the ultimate sad end...
Now it gets worse. I think I'd have just sat on the ground and cried...my lovely crane!
And here's where it came to rest....of course the real question is how on earth do you recover it..not with aniother crane on the same roof....errr no. that won't do. perhaps someone has pictures of how they ultimately rescued it....and my thanks to Cam and his mates for passing the pictuires on to me. It only goes to show that bad news travels like a wildf-ire and good news travels slow...And once again if anyone was hurt then let me know and I'll take this down.
Did they [i]really[/i] think a crane of that size and mass would be safe on that flimsy roof? Its almost as though the crash was deliberate!
A crane of that size places a massive load on its outriggers and large timbers are normally used to spread this load.
It looks as if the large timbers weren't large enough in this case, Pete! Just imagine the paperwork involved in the incident reports after that lot.
The second last photo clearly show that sole-boards were not used under the outrigger pads.
Not only that, there was not enough back-propping under the floor.
Back-propping on the floor below should be in position directly underneath the outriggers. However, if sole-boards were not used, "goodbye Charlie".
According to the Hill Shire Times, the crane driver received minor injuries and they are still working out how to remove the crane. An oxy torch, I suggest.
i have posted a link to an article giving some insight as to why the accident happnes and confirms the lack of serious injuries. it is not such a clear case of having no support under the outrigger leg. Quite interesting. The crane was removed using two mobiles, a 400 and a 200 T and i think it went back to Liebher for rebuild