Big moves in crane brakes sector
NewsIn a significant development for the container crane sector, Pintsch Bubenzer has been acquired by the Dellner Group of Sweden
More on Southampton crane collapse
Could boom latch failure have been the problem?
More information has come to light regarding the crane at Southampton Container Terminals that collapsed onto Hapag-Lloyd’s 8749 TEU Kyoto Express on 18 January, taking the A-frame with it. As previously reported, the incident occurred during boom down operations as the crane was being prepared to unload the ship, and neither the crane operator nor anyone else was injured.
Shipside operations were immediately suspended pending inspection of all the other cranes and they are being brought back into service one at a time. The Freight Transport Association has issued a statement that the slow pace of resumption of normal operations is causing major disruption to trade and urged both SCT and HSE to speed things up.
The crane is one of five Morris cranes built in 1991-2, with 40.6t SWL, 45.1m outreach and 31m lift height. In 2004-5 they were raised by 5m to 36m by Seward Wyon and in 2006 they had a 4m boom extension from the same contractor.
The cause of the boom collapse is not known, but the cranes were fitted [as are most container cranes] with boom latches and, historically in the container ports industry, boom latch malfunction is a frequent cause of boom collapse incidents (eg Port of Cristóbal, Panama, December 2005 – view CP&A accident report on www.cranedesign.com/report.htm)
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