20.07.2016

Crane comes down in NY

A large brand new crawler crane dropped its boom across a seven lane bridge yesterday on the new Tappan Zee bridge project in New York.

The crane, was working from the deck of the new Tappan Zee Bridge across the Hudson River to the North of New York City. The boom was over the side of the crane and the bridge working with a large piling hammer.
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The boom came down across the entire width of the old bridge

Witnesses say that the boom started to come down slowly at first but then gathered momentum and came crashing down onto a barge and then the old bridge. Amazingly the boom managed to miss cars on the busy seven lane crossing, although some collided with each other as they swerved and braked to avoid the falling boom. There were no serious injuries reported, although five people were treated for minor injuries and at least one person was taken to hospital. The operator was said to be fine.
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The crane boom came down onto a barge as well as the old bridge

The crane itself remained stable on the new bridge, the old bridge was closed for inspection. It was later cleared of the debris, and partially reopened to traffic.

The crane appears to be a new 300 tonne Manitowoc ML300 equipped with the VPC Max variable counterweight attachment. We were told that the crane is operated by Essex Crane Rental, but were not able to confirm that. We will update this item as we receive more news.
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The crane remained perfectly stable, although its variable counterweight crashed to the ground