03.10.2007

Swingaway dangers

An Ainscough crane driver had a lucky escape on Sunday but still lost the tops of two fingers after an accident while erecting (or stowing) a lattice swingaway extension.

The accident occurred on a site at Colnbrook near London Heathrow when the operator was working on the swingaway lattice extension of a 160 tonne Liebherr crane.
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The falling swingaway caught the operators hand

Vertikal Comment

Martin Ainscough, chairman of Ainscough, has been a passionate advocate against the use of such extensions in the past. Arguing that their use on many cranes is too infrequent for the operators to become truly familiar with the erection procedures.

In fact at the time the company ordered new machines without the extensions in a bid to start removing them from the fleet.

If an operator has not put up a swingaway for some time it is quite possible that he forgets the proper sequence of removing pivot retaining pins and installing stowage pins allowing the jib to literally fall off the crane as it did in this case.