14.08.2008

Goliath crane accident

A man has died at the Fore River shipyard in Quincy, near Boston during the dismantling of a 1,200 ton 100 metre high Goliath gantry crane. The upper part of the crane has been lifted by two massive jacking towers which have taken the weight in order to remove the cranes legs.
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A photo taken last week showing the lifitng masts and the method of removing the lower part of the legs.

The legs had been cut into two in preparation to remove the lower parts so that the top could be lowered closer to the ground, but the top of one leg came away from the crane and fell to the ground killing Robert Harvey, 28. Two other men were injured, one seriously but not life threatening.
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The dropped upper section of the leg

The company responsible to dismantling the crane and moving it to its new owner - Daewoo Mangalia Heavy Industries in Romania – is Seattle based Norsar - part of the Sarens group it is jointly owned by Sarens and Greg Nordholm.

The company specialises in this type of job. The shipyard had a similar accident in 2005 when it was dismantling a smaller overhead crane for shipment. In that accident two men died and the company responsible received 15 violations.

Investigators with the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration are headed to the scene to investigate any worker safety violations, said Boston OSHA spokesman Ted Fitzgerald.

The crane was built and erected in 1974/75 by General Dynamics to lift the big tanks on liquified natural gas carriers, but has not been used since 1986 when the yard closed. Daniel Quirk, a local car dealer bought the yard at auction in January 2003, he sold most of the equipment to Perfection machinery the same year but was left with the Goliath crane which he finally manged to sell late last year.