Crane Safety Reinspected

Deadly collapses sound alarm for more stringent guidelines

By Eileen Schwartz

A recent spate of high-profile crane fatalities in Texas and across the country emphasizes the need for improved crane oversight and is forcing the building industry to re-examine the way cranes are inspected and operators are trained.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, Texas, one of 35 states that does not require crane personnel to be certified, led the U.S. in crane-related fatalities in 2005 and 2006, with a combined 26 deaths out of a total 157 nationally. Federal data after 2006 are not yet available.

Texas’ record showed some signs of improving, according to data from craneaccidents.

com, an independent safety clearinghouse, which reported six workers died in crane accidents in 2007. But nine crane-related deaths have already been reported to the site for Texas in 2008.

“The numbers are unacceptable,” says Mark Bakeman, a former crane operator and one of a handful of crane instructors in Texas certified by the National Commission for the Certification of Crane Operators. He is the former safety director with the AGC, San Antonio chapter.

City officials in Austin, Dallas and Houston are considering regulation. At press time, the Austin City Council was scheduled to vote Aug. 7 on a crane safety ordinance.

At the Cowboys Stadium site in Arlington, three workers for subcontractor Derr Steel Erection Co. were injured when they jumped from the cab of a crane to avoid a falling gantry. Photo © AP.

Crane safety compliance in Texas, meanwhile, is overseen by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in accordance with federal policy. It is up to the employer to conduct daily inspections to be in compliance, says Elizabeth Todd, a spokeswoman for the Texas regional office of OSHA in Dallas.

“We routinely inspect sites with cranes,” she says. But she adds there is no set schedule and no plans currently to increase inspections in Texas.

“All crane accidents I’ve been involved with or researched were avoidable,” Bakeman says. “There was always some parameter that was well beyond capacity and there was always something the operator had the authority to stop.”

Recent accidents OSHA is investigating two crane accidents in the Dallas area in June that killed one worker and injured three others, one critically.

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It is also looking for answers as to what caused a July 18 crane collapse that killed four workers and injured seven others–one of the deadliest crane accidents in recent U.S. history. Initial reports point to the machine’s counterweights as a possible source.

The accident occurred at a Houston refinery owned by Netherlands-based LyondellBasell when a custom-built, VersaCrane TC-36000 equipped with a back mast and 420 ft of main lattice boom separated at its base and crashed into a smaller crane before hitting the ground.

Soon after, two lawsuits were filed in state court. The probe is in “early stages,” says Byron Buchanan, a lawyer with Brent Koon & Associates of Houston. He adds that based on preliminary inquiries, investigators are looking at the 2,500-ton-capacity crane’s counterweights for clues. Buchanan’s firm is representing Paul M. Musick, who did not work for the crane contractor but was injured while trying to escape the falling crane.

A deadly accident at a Houston refinery in July deepened local and national concerns about crane accidents. The 420-ft-long lattice boom (red, left) took out a smaller one as it fell down. Photo © KHOU, Houston.

Described as one of the largest mobile cranes in the U.S., the VersaCrane, which was properly code certified, was slated to perform maintenance work on the refinery’s coking unit. A test lift was performed one day before the accident. The crane was not scheduled to operate the day of the collapse, but refinery officials say the engine was running after the boom fell.

“At the time of the accident, the crane was not performing any lifts associated with the turnaround,” confirms Lisa Walsh, refinery spokeswoman. “Part of the investigation will determine what activities the crane was involved in at the time of the incident.”

Brad Closson of CRAFT Forensic Services, Bonita, Calif, says he wouldn’t jump to conclusions. “At the end of the day, gravity is pretty consistent and there will be a set of causes,” he adds. “There will be a reason why this thing is on the ground and in pieces.”

In a crane accident on June 11, a worker for subcontractor TXI of Dallas was killed at a residential high rise when a hook from a crane broke loose and fell on him.

In nearby Arlington, three workers were hospitalized on June 13 after a crane accident at the site of the new, $1.5 billion Dallas Cowboys football stadium. The workers, employed by Derr Steel Erection Co. of Euless, a subcontractor on the project, jumped from the cab of the crane to avoid a falling gantry.

“It appears that the crane’s mast was in the raised position,” Closson says. “Something holding it there failed.”

On June 14, in an unrelated accident, an employee of subcontractor JMEG Electrical was electrocuted after coming into contact with a high-voltage line at the stadium site. Manhattan Construction, the project’s contractor, has about 1,400 workers at the site daily in hopes of opening the stadium by the start of the 2009 season.

Mark Penny, project executive for Manhattan, says the firm is analyzing its current program of inspections and reviews to see if changes are necessary.

Looking for answers City leaders, meanwhile, are also trying to determine what action or oversight they should take. Arlington Mayor Robert Cluck says that the high-profile Cowboys stadium project has a good safety record, but OSHA needs to strengthen its standards.

QUOIN, the North Texas chapter of the AGC, began holding educational safety “stand downs” on jobsites in 2005 due to Texas’ high fatality rate. Shown, workers at a Roger’s O’Brien/Beck jobsite participate in a stand-down event in May.

Matt Papenfus, vice president of Turner Construction’s Dallas office, says that in the June 11 high-rise accident, the crane was supplied by rental outfit Lewis Equipment of Grand Prairie and was manufactured by SunCrane, the Chinese brand shut down in Washington state after regulators there found mixed SunCrane and Terex-brand tower sections and unclear electrical certification.

Closson says the Dallas high-rise accident may have been caused by the failure of the bull wire – a wire-rope sling hung from the crane’s hook and then attached by another hook to items such as concrete buckets.

Jeff Pedigo, spokesman for Lewis Equipment, says the crane was recently inspected and had been onsite since October. “Crane safety is on the forefront of our mind,” he says.

Bakeman says lack of training is a particularly a problem in Texas where crane operators are not required to be certified. “We need to get away from the mentality that anyone who can pull a lever on a crane is a crane operator,” he adds.

He says that allowing unqualified workers to operate cranes leads to a push-the-envelope mentality. Despite load charts and capacities, some operators will go beyond the capacity of the crane, Bakeman says.

“You got these cowboys out there who think, ‘I’m 10,000 out of chart, but I know the crane will do it, so I’ll go ahead,’” Bakeman adds.

Reviewing standards With no national standard for how operators are certified, there are varying degrees from state to state in certification requirements.

“That is probably even more in flux than dealing with the equipment itself,” says Steven Smith, group manager for CTLGroup of Washington, D.C., He adds that the majority of failures he and his firm have investigated tended to be operator error.

Bakeman says it will take federal action to bring about change, especially in Texas. “We’re not going to police ourselves, so we’re going to need somebody to come in and take over,” he says.

Shortly after the crane incidents in Dallas, the North Texas chapter of the Associated General Contractors, QUOIN, held a CEO summit. The group discussed its perception about what was going on related to crane safety and crane issues, says Raleigh Roussell, president and CEO of the QUOIN chapter.

“Out of that meeting, we charged our safety leadership team, made up of the top safety professionals in the area, to come up with a set of industry best practices dealing with crane use and safety,” Roussell says.

He says those include recommending operator certification and the use of third-party inspectors.

Charles DeVoe, president of Dallas-based Charter Builders Ltd., says the industry needs to have more stringent guidelines. “Probably some national or statewide recognized program that has minimum standards with respect to operation of a crane.”

Susan Phillips, safety director for Tellepsen Builders of Houston, says that the operator is in control at a jobsite, and “we would like to see a level playing field where all operators are trained at the same level of expertise.”

And Dan Williams, director of corporate safety for Walton Construction of Dallas, says that while there is value in a city having standards for a certain level of requirements, “it is limited.”

“A tower crane is not just a tower crane,” he adds. “They are erected in different jobsites in many different configurations.”

Bakeman says the shortage of OSHA compliance officers is a major problem. He says that in the booming Austin/San Antonio area, eight officers are on the safety side and four on health. “Compared to the area they cover, it’s an impossible task,” he adds.

Maintenance is another area that suffers, particularly during boom times, Bakeman says.

“There’s so much work going on, and the demands of the cranes are so high, there are only so many hours in the day to do the required maintenance,” he says.

One issue being considered is having black-box technology on all cranes, CTLGroup’s Smith says. For example, information that might be recovered could show what kind of loads cranes had been exposed to, he adds.

“Most newer cranes already have substantial data-logging capabilities,” Smith says. “The question then is for smaller, older cranes that aren’t necessarily set up to keep that kind of information.”

Bakeman says there is a danger in the misconception that newer models are inherently safer. While older cranes would tip over before they would break, newer, computer-engineered models have a tendency to break before they’ll tip over, he says.

“You get these guys thinking, ‘I’m OK, I’m not starting to tip over,’” Bakeman says. “The next thing you know, something snaps, and we have a major catastrophe.”

Useful Sources:

National Commission for the Certification of Crane Operators: www.ncco.org
Crane accident reports and commentary: www.craneaccidents.com
OSHA standards: www.osha.gov/SLTC/cranehoistsafety