08.11.2016

Spider lift left dangling

A spider lift is dangling around 50 storeys above a street in Barangaroo, Sydney, following the failure of a roof mounted derrick crane.
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The spider lift is dangling at the top of the 51 storey tower

The spider lift, an Omme 2750RJ lift, owned by Monitor Lifts and re-rented to a national hire company, had been working from the top of Barangaroo’s Tower One, currently under construction and was being lowered to the ground, having completed its work. The crane appears to have suffered from a serious structural overload as it luffed its load out to horizontal, causing the vertical lattice section/stiff leg, that forms the centre of the three legged derrick to buckle, along with the beam supporting the jib pivot.
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The spider lift, looks like a large Omme lift and one of two or more working on the roof

The developer, Lend Lease, has confirmed that no one has been injured in the incident and that it has created an exclusion zone and has taken steps to secure the crane.

"Safety remains our number one priority and engineers are assessing the crane and will advise next steps in due course."
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The vertical lattice section and supporting beam buckled

UPDATED

The platform was gradually lowered to the ground - after dangling a day or so. We not quite sure how it was accomplished, it seems that they recovery team might have secured the winch and gradually lowered it into the exclusion zone. We will update as soon as we have more information.