On our local news today. http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/newstead-crane-collapse-kills-man-20151214-glnhos.html A couple of interesting quotes from the article; "It is understood the man who died hired the crane from a local company and was operating it himself." "I had just walked past and noticed the extension was extremely high and based in what I would consider to be a fairly loose-packed soil base,"
A bit unusual in that the deceased was in a boom mounted man basket instead of picking a load. Must have been really unstable footing to tip if he was boomed up as high as we were led to believe. Prayers that his son will recover.
Can't tell from pictures, were outriggers extended? Wonder about any wind in area at the time, would not take too much wind gust on 120 foot/40 meter boom if ground was soft or outriggers were not properly positioned.
That's a tragic accident. Incidents such as this are pushing the use of drones for such photography work.
I was wondering about that. There are at least a couple of operators in Brisbane that specialise in drone photography for the real estate industry. They're very heavily regulated for commercial use, I believe, and the site involved is not far from an international airport.
I'm not sure about the rules here in the States either Queenslander. However drone usage in larger construction companies is growing, from the articles I've read in the trade magazines. I see myself investing in one in the future to fly over existing projects before construction to document the existing site conditions.
The FAA just announced that all drones here in the US will have to be registered with them. I don't know of any further rules but it would make sense that they would issue them at registration.
I seen that on the news also. New ones will be registered when puchased. Cheap to register and has a bunch of paperwork with flying rules so there is no more "I did not know any better".
According to reports, rather than cribbing, the outriggers were set on rubber mats [on unstable soil]. Additionally, part of the boom was supported by some kind of beam that snapped, and when it did so, the entire boom tipped over. Never heard of such a thing (rubber mats rather than cribbing under outriggers and supporting the boom with some makeshift beam). "Witnesses have reportedly described how the truck-mounted crane was propped up by beams soon before the accident. When one of them snapped, the truck was thrown on its side, bringing the arm of the crane down with it." He had some heartfelt words for his son on the way down. The operator suffered superficial injuries. From Channel 7 News on Dec. 22, 2015 .
We rented reinforced rubber matts for soft ground at a college addition project a few years ago. They worked good for driving the forklift across the manicured lawns but they very explicitly forbad any lifting or extending of the boom while on them. They held up great but they are not of structural quality to hold an outrigger. I wonder if they were setting on something of that order.
O The 17 year old recovered enough to attend his dad's funeral, a few days later, on an ambulance stretcher.... Heart wrenching stuff.