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A crane operator has been fined £2,500 and his employer £4,500 following a fatal accident in the UK in 2007. The accident occurred on a site in Liverpool in March 2007. Mark Thornton, 46, was working as crane supervisor for his employer Sitwell Construction, when the 50 tonne crane he was directing tipped over due to overloading. The load, a six tonne steel column, struck Thornton killing him instantly.

Following the successful completion of a one-day conference during ConExpo-Con/Agg in Las Vegas last month,Maximum Capacity Media announces the dates for the second Crane & Rigging Conference (CRC) and Reach Expo to be held this summer. The event returns to Houston, Texas, July 19-20,

A large boat being loaded onto a larger ship in Galway harbour, Ireland, was dropped yesterday after the lifting slings broke. Three men were taken to hospital with minor injuries.

A reader from the UK has sent us some photos of an old steam crane in Manchester and wonders if anyone has any information on it. He says that he came across it sitting in dock and when questioned the stefedores working on it they told him that they did not know anything of its history but that it is due to be cut up for scrap.

A man working on the top of a mobile crane was injured yesterday in Tempe, Arizona, it is not clear if he was rigging or carrying out maintenance work, when something struck his leg and broke it.

A crane was lifting a 360-kilogram (800-pound) steel I-beam into position for a house under construction. Two workers were waiting to guide the beam onto two steel columns when the crane suddenly came off the truck’s chassis. The crane’s boom, along with the steel beam, fell onto the floor of the house.

A Rough Terrain crane tipped over yesterday by the side of the river in St Joseph Michigan. The operator escaped with minor leg injuries. The crane went over sideways at the Pier 33 Marina trapping the operator, Walton Dohner in the cab upside down hanging over the St Joseph river. The photos suggest that one of the outrigger beams was not fully extended on the side the crane tipped.

Ottawa, Ontario-based construction company AGF Raymond Rebar has been fined C$110,000 for violations of the Occupational Health and Safety Act after a worker was injured during the lifting of two rebar structures.

OSHA now offers a guidance document to help small businesses comply with the agency’s cranes and derricks rule published in August 2010. This new standard was issued to address the number of worker injuries and deaths associated with the use of cranes and derricks in construction.

The UK’s Health & Safety Executive has concluded an investigation into the failure of a hook on a loader crane whilst lifting a large cabin. Examination of the hook after the accident revealed that a roll pin used to secure a nut onto the threaded shank of the hook had failed. The failure of the pin allowed the nut to move on the threaded shank, particularly when the hook and load were rotated.