NOMADICISTA

I have in the past been somewhat outspoken, in regards to weights, capacity, and weight distribution. Some people have considered me to be needlessly pedantic about the topic.
I tend to be much the same in my work place, and though not to the same degree, I used to get a similar response from some of my co-workers. That changed abruptly on July the 1st, last year. As I was returning from a break, to drive a ship to shore crane, I witnessed the following accident, as it happened. The scale won't be apparent in the photos, so I will give some stats.

The machine is a Kalmar ESC450 straddle carrier. The drivers cab is at the top of the machine.
The height of the machine is about 14.5 metres (around 45 feet) It's tare weight is 70 tonne (154,000 lbs) and maximum operating gross weight is 120 tonne (264,000 lbs).
The driver, who was experienced, inadvertently turned a little faster than the designed stability curve allowed for; here is the result.




On the day of the accident I was driving the crane at the forward end of the ship. it weighs 1200 tonne (2,640,000 lbs)




It is rare for anyone to survive this type of accident, and for at least the following few days the driver in this accident was very very close to not making it, but by some miracle he did survive, and has even made it back to work now.

In the following photo, I am the person on the right, walking back towards th camera, having just worked at containing the fuel spill, then chaperoning the police, to keep them from entering high risk areas, while they did their scene examination.

The group on the left of the photo, are returning, to finish the cargo exchange, so the ship can depart. While the group on the right, are trying to come to terms, with what has just happened to one of our work mates, and considering the fact that it could have been any one of us, operating that machine.

That's rough, glad he's ok. Was he carrying a load? Do you move with the load at the top? I've delivered to shipyards in US. The cranes didn't seem to be quite that narrow.

He maybe back at work, but he is going to be in for a painful old age. Just about anything that can be broken in a person, was. Were he is lucky, is that he has absolutely no memory of the entire day that it happened.

The outside width on that particular machine is 5 metres, which is twice the width of a container. The inside width is 3.5 metres.

I'm guessing it looks narrower than you remember, either because the ports you went into, either had rubber tyre gantry cranes, which are very wide, or if it was straddle ports, they were likely only three high, as opposed to four high, which does make the proportion look quite different. We were only the second port in the southern hemisphere to start using four high straddles. And they have only started to become common in the northern hemisphere in the last year or two (mostly in Europe).

He was not carrying a load at the time, which actually makes the machine less stable at the spreader travel height of 3.5 metres. We only carry the containers higher than that when loading/unloading trucks, trains, or traveling over the top of other containers. At the time of the accident, he was setting himself up, to travel under the crane to remove a discharged container, from the ship.

Whoa!! Lucky guy!

Wow! That guy is lucky to be alive-----like you say until he reaches old age.

On what may be a related topic and because I help out at a friend's tow company in my spare time, the owner has his operators watch various "how not to do it" videos about safe set up etc. The following link is particularly instructive:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6w8R--CQ3Q


Stuart, your work mate might take solace in knowing he isn't the only member of the tip-it-over club. Jack

Hey Jack. I've seen the stills to that. If I'm not mistaken, there was a third crane, that ended up the same as the first two.

Last time I operated a crane was lifting signs at a sign shop when I was 15 in the mid 60's - the cranes of that day seemed to me to be death traps. I am wondering if there have been improvements in the underlying safety mechanisms - the one thing that comes to mind is some kind of "quick release" actuated by the operator, and tilt sensors that would release in case of too much (whatever too much is...?) leaning.

Having said that, the side approach doesn't give much leverage...even with outriggers - would coming off the back give enough extra leverage to help keep that from happening?