Accident inquiry focuses on crane photos
Submitted by Ernie Pierini on Thursday, 10 December 20092 Comments
As photographic evidence from the public pours in to state investigators, one thing is becoming clear: A lot of ordinary folks noticed that the downtown Bellevue tower construction crane was leaning before it toppled.
The state Department of Labor and Industries is digging into why the crane was off-center, and whether its unusual base could be a cause. Figuring out why the problem wasn’t fixed before it was too late is also a goal of the investigation
By ANDREA JAMES
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This one is worse than you might think. I’ll try to be brief. I was one of the crane erectors on this crane. The job site was plagued with financial problems for years. This was actually crane #3 for the site. Crane #1 was removed when funding fell through. Crane #2 was brought in to build parking structure floors because the temporary lagging walls were meant to be temporary. The concrete foundation cracked. It was repaired by epoxy injection. After the floors were built up, crane #2 was removed. When financing was finally secured for the project, the new contractor didn’t want to risk using the old foundation. So they designed a steel base that ran from column line to column line suspended above the parking garage floor. The span was long and in an H pattern. (Important note – hanging on the bottom of the steel were angle irons slotted and through bolted into a flat plate with a bolt, grouted into the floor.)
When we hung the counter jib, then the machine deck, the guys had the crane swing (I was working the ground building jibs and unloading trucks). The crane is under the most stress it would ever see. As is swung over the SW corner there was a loud bang. The guys in the air said that the crane jerked backwards. on the ground it sounded like a weld failing on the base. We all go down to the base and after looking for the weld fracture I see the angles at the end of their slotting in opposite directions. We get a builders level and the base was out 1 inch in 96 inches. The standard is 1:500. The phones start coming out and the result was, we were told to proceed as the condition was planned for. Two months later the crane collapses killing Matthew Ammon. The cause was metal fatigue. There is more to the story about how high the crane was originally designed to be built, it was to be tied in, I don’t know who why or when any of that stuff was changed. I just know that no one was hearing me that day.
The clean up was a mess. The counter jib was suspended in the air. Everything was torched apart and it’s quite the process of planning each move and gauging weights. It’s really a long story, sorry for the long comment. The reality is we knew it was out of plumb before it was finished. Which ever way the load moment went, so did the crane, in a bad way!
Wow.
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