Incident at SSE Hydro

[gibbothegreat]

Rather confused picture at this stage of what actually happened, but the essence seems to be that a chain fell out of the rig over the audience and hit at least one audience member, who was taken to hospital. The show wasn't stopped, which might seem to indicate a rather surprising confidence in the one-off nature of the accident... http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/adele-fan-rushed-hospital-after-7632201#W0jJc04yfUI6CVEW.97

 

Curiously, another report quotes an eye-witness as saying that it was a chain belonging to a light fitting, and that there was then a cable swinging around which they feared might electrocute someone: http://www.theshowbizlion.com/2016/03/adele-distressed-by-fan-injury-at-scots.html?m=1

[kitlane]

This article seems to reveal a bit more detail.

[timsabre]

There's a better picture in this bbc report

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-35903979

 

Looks like the dead end of a motor chain somehow come loose.

[gareth]

https://twitter.com/HeartScotNews/status/713491531412480000 - first picture shows it to be a motor hook that's somehow dropped into a seating row. I bet that hurt like hell.

[musht]

chain siphoning out of its bag?

 

[Thomas1987]

Alternatively, if that's the hook end, the hoist is still in the air, hanging off the truss assuming multiple points. Could have been worse though if it's a 20m chain falling to ground, with the resultant force on the truss... Very bad.

[ontoprigger]

That's the stop end on the chain shown in the photo, if it had been the hook I doubt it would have hit the floor if you look at the trim length of the chain on the other motors.

 

I am guessing the confetti blowers or whatever's in those flight cases caused enough movement in the truss for the chain that was probably stacked up the side of the bag and out the top to over balance and dump it out.

 

Anyway enough surmising hopefully we will get a full account so that we can all take the required action to make sure it dose not happen again, probably the right size bag in good condition for the chain length would be a start. It's one of the downside of double braked motors and no safety's, the riggers don't get up on the truss and see that type of problem and fix it before the audience arrive.

[ontoprigger]

It turns out the likely cause was the use of chain hoists from different sources.

 

The truss was usually flown on two hoists from a European manufacturer, and for some reason be it increased safety factors or hanging point capacity issues a hoist from a USA manufacturer was used to pick up the center. while all the hoists were supposedly 4m per Min, the one from the USA runs at a slightly slower speed than the European ones, so as the truss was raised the middle hoist took less tension until the chain bag was sitting on the truss and the chain piled to the top. When they used the effects equipment on the truss there was enough movement to dislodge the chain pulling it out of the bag and sent the tail end to the floor.

 

This highlights the need for anyone raising and lowering a truss to be on top of the situation and if they don't have a clear view engage the help of a spotter or spotters, also don't mix hoist types on the same truss, even hoist from the same manufacturer have speed differences but they are likely to be closer than mixing brands. Once you have flown the truss out check that all the hoists are under the correct tension. The use of a load cell system would have alerted the operator, as soon as you have more than two hoists in a system then you have an indeterminate load factor and even though the truss may look level not all of the hoists will have a balanced load the only way to know is by using load cells.

 

I hope the person injured is making a good recovery and the promoter is looking after them suitably, if the no win no fee lawyers get involved it will be them that gets the most out of it and us that pays for it through higher insurance premiums.

[mikienorth]

Not wanting to say anything out of turn (I wasn't there, no insight except the pictures and having toured through the SSE a few times) But...

 

Is this perhaps a case where a stipulation has been made by the venue, or the venue's contractors in the name of safety, that has actually proved more dangerous?

 

I know in the past I've been asked to do extra work in there because the carefully and expertly designed structure I was building in there wasn't 'safe enough' so extra structural supports were hired locally and added at the request of the venue's safety team.

 

It sounds like "That needs safeties because it's going over the audience" from the venue, met with "We can't do that, it needs to come in and out to be re-loaded", to which a reply was "Stick an extra motor on it so its within a better safety factor"

 

Whereas, if it had been left as designed for every other venue, it wouldn't have happened.

 

 

ALSO, a good advert for the increasing tendency for tours to have a rigging supplier that supplies ALL motors to a production, regardless of what is being hung below. Ensuring, or at least going a long way toward ensuring, the motors are all one frequency specification.