November 20th, 2010

Busan, Korea. A luffing tower crane lost it's boom on the Paragon Apartment project. It sounds as if no one was injured in this accident.

Looking at the video, The only things notable are that the gantry looks to be intact. Without better pictures, the number one suspect is the Luffing rope failing. The only effective way to really get a good look at these is while the crane is being erected. If you have a bellman, or an inspector available, make sure that they are running a towel over the line as it's being pulled out by the crane erectors. There are often six long parts of rope that you'll never get to on the drum after the crane is put into operation. After it's erected, you'll be faced with having to inspect it visually. Effectively if you could see 100% of the outside of the rope, you are really only inspecting 20% of it. A good inspection requires tactile inspection feeling displacements, bird cages, broken wires on the side opposite of where you stand and and potential displacements of the core.

Outside of the rope, be sure to fully load test the crane and visually inspect that luffing winch brake to make sure that it isn't glazed or simply worn out.  

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