Excuse me mate, your crane's just fallen over...

[Simon Lewis]

See here

[Cougar]

Full article here

 

Have to say its a rather scary idea of that large a crane falling when you in the line of its fall.

[dwh]

Scary thing is, same thing's apparently happening in Croydon at the moment... They've had to close a lot of the roads in the town because of an unstable crane (which accordingly meant that my 10 minute drive home became 3 hours of non-moving gridlock, and watching idiots trying to get around it with "creative" driving)...

[mikienorth]

.....And In January in Liverpool, and recently before that in London.

Seems that cranes are having a bit of a bad time of it lately.

 

HSE did issue a note about checking bolts for corrosion and correct fit not too long after the Liverpool incident, which was apparently connected to the London one....

 

Ho Hum, I left the building trade a few years ago, and I'm rather glad......

[Tom R]

What I have to ask is how come someone happened to be filming what is, apparently, nothing at the exact time a crane fell over! One of those things I guess!

[Pete McCrea]

It's probably the best view over Belfast you'll get, and quite likely a once in a lifetime one if you get to see it. I'd probably have my camera out......

[Ike]

What I have to ask is how come someone happened to be filming what is, apparently, nothing at the exact time a crane fell over! One of those things I guess!

If you listen carefully to the audio on the YouTube version (I couldn't access the BBC one) you can hear they initially think its going to hit, the audio goes something along the lines of;

 

"he's going to whack that, he's going to whack"

"he going to nudge that"

"everybody ready...a big bang"

"he's missed it"

"he's going to miss it"

"will you stop nudging me"

"he's missed it"

...

"its tight enough"

"OOOOOOOOOOOOW WHOOOOOOOOOOW OOOOOOOOW S**T OH F**K HOLY S**T OH F**K OH F**K OH F**K OH F**K HOLY S**T"

 

...and you get the idea!

 

I guess the real questions are is if they spotted it why didn't the official spotters? Why didn't they notify someone of their concerns? If they did why weren't their concerns listened to?

 

Maybe the wind changed direction and the smaller crane slewed into the path of the larger one but shouldn't someone have been spotting? I guess its for the lawyers to decide now.