Shocking crane barge accident

It looks like the plan was to have the little far-side crane lead the pivot in order to have the load clear under its boom and over its riggers and keep the falls up-and-down. As soon and the pivot begins, the rear barge begins to heel substantially and pitch down. I think it was the pitch that did it in. The lift was clearly not fully counterbalanced - not even close. So when the little crane rotated forwards the whole barge pitched down and the lift height decreased. You can clearly see the lift starts level, but is low on the small far-side crane after the pivot. With the lift being made mostly from the bottom, (the effective lift point appears to be way below the cg of the load) that rolled a lot more load onto the little crane, which sank further and continued the process. If more lift had been on the upper purchase, the load would not have transferred during a rotation. Who lifts a tall skinny object from the bottom using two cranes?

 

This is something from where they fell, watch the shadows...

 

If no one saw that set up as an accident waiting to happen is cause for serious concern.

 

WOW, some close call escapes . . .

 

Small correction on the no casualties statement of the mayor, in a video the managing director of the crane company makes many apologies to everyone affected by the consequences of the accident, and also expresses his compassion to the owner of a dog that was killed in the accident, at 0:58 in the video, which is in Dutch.

Crane company apologizes in a video for the accident in Alphen (article in Dutch)





Peinemann - the crane company - Statement (in Dutch)​

 

In above video no information about the cause of the accident, in this respect only references to the ongoing investigation of which they will not speculate at the moment.

In the video there's also referred to the below Dutch website for information.

Repairs Juliana Bridge ---> Peinemann FAQ​

 

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Got this from the Peinemann website where they also work with mobile land and road cranes stationed on pontoons, but this setup seems to be less sensitive to sideways incline of the cranes making the pontoons list and so causing a self-reinforcing effect leading to the capsize of the cranes.

 

The couple riding bikes down the street at the start of this video were pretty lucky not to have been smashed by the debris.

 

I've worked on a couple of jobs where land cranes were used on pontoons and barges. Land cranes are designed to work on a level surface. Any sort of slope, like from a barge listing to one side, introduces side loads on the boom for which it is not designed.

Same with swinging loads. There should be tag lines with winch tuggers attached to the free end of the load to keep it from swinging.

Barges with cranes are going to list. What you want to do is position the crane on deck so that the list occurs at the boom end and not to the side of the boom. For a barge of normal proportions, GML > GMT.

 

that video is amazing. there are people running well ahead of the impact, but there is a guy in a blue shirt who appears to be relaying brick on the sidewalk (sitting on the ground next to the cars) who is complete unaware until the building colapses next to him.

There are bricks flying everyone, one of those could kill someone, let alone a whole wall of them flying towards you. Everyone was lucky indeed.

There was a large construction crane accident in Belleview Wa a few years ago, It fell across some expensive luxury condos. There was one young man who was killed, he was unlucky enough to be at home in his condo when it happened. It was pure luck the death toll was not much higher.

 

Has anyone heard what was the cause of this event? The internet is surprisingly useless it sometimes seems.

 

The accident happened barely a month ago. I suspect the investigators are still collecting evidence and testimony about the sequence of events. It usually takes several months to a year to analyze the facts, make tests, determine a cause or causes, and issue a report.

 

Here's the view of a competitor on the accident, in Dutch . . . .

Fallen cranes in Alphen (in Dutch)​

I'll try to give a summary of the two of the main things he says...

He tells that the pontoons in the accident were ballasted with free floating water and about the bad consequences of this in combination with list.

And also about the total unsuitability of road cranes on pontoons.​

 

Technology does not always make a safe work place you have to know how to use your equipment.

 

I'm guessing free floating water means no compartment baffles.
It looked like the far crane operator was going too fast to begin with, and whatever happened to his crane, which started the whole event, happened suddenly with a jerky motion. That could be to do with being land cranes...maybe his outrigger extended support arms slipped, not being fastened to the barge like a dedicated crane would be, and once a large, heavy weight gets out of control, it dictates what happens. An object in motion tends to stay in motion, etc.