Crane collapse kills man outside Boston, MA

[JML42691]

Earlier today, during the deconstruction of the massive crane nicknamed "Goliath," which has been standing over the former Quincy shipyard for several decades, a leg of the crane collapsed, crushing a man to his death.

The crane which stood at 328 feet tall was built in 1970, and has been a local landmark for years. The dismantlement of the crane began at the end of July, after it was sold to a South Korean company which would have it moved to Romania. The process for dismantling the crane involved cutting the legs out from under it, removing them, and then slowly lowering the crane to the ground. The section that fell earlier today was cut and was set to be removed later, but fell before the area surrounding it was cleared.

The collapse resulted in an evacuation of the area 2,000 feet surrounding it, for fear of another collapse that could send a dangerous shock wave around the area.

Here are news links:

WCVB-5 News Video

Boston Globe Article

 

[iShater]

The cut and remove the legs first? ?

 

[JML42691]

The cut and remove the legs first? ?

They set up temporary support trusses that would support the horizontal part of the crane, while the vertical legs were cut and removed.

Here is a better view of the crane during dismantling, and the man in the yellow shirt in that picture was the man who was crushed by the collapse.

 

[iShater]

Omg.

 

[GSMiller]

What's with all the collapsing cranes all of a sudden? That's all you hear on the news anymore. It's almost like that before Summer 2008, not a single crane had EVER collapsed.

 

[JML42691]

What's with all the collapsing cranes all of a sudden? That's all you hear on the news anymore. It's almost like that before Summer 2008, not a single crane had EVER collapsed.

It does seem like there are a lot more crane collapses lately, but I do not think that this was like the other ones, as this one was supposed to fall, all the things were done before it for it to fall (except for the obvious), but it fell when it wasn't supposed to. Thankfully it fell the way that it was supposed to (even though it was early), if that had fallen in the other direction and hit the truss supporting the largest part of it, or the other supporting legs, then that would have been catastrophic. I was in this area yesterday (about a 1/4 mile from the crane), thankfully it didn't fall then, as I sure would have felt it. And I definitely would have felt it from my house if the entire structure had collapsed.