Video Catches Moment Multiple Cranes Collapse at Australian Site

This video is a bit of a throwback, but I recently came across it on the interwebs for the first time and thought it was worth a share. 

The incident below happened almost 10 years ago at the Wesfarmers Curragh coal mine in Queensland, Australia. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the boom of one of the site’s 5 draglines was being lowered by four cranes.  The boom ended up free falling around 100 feet when one of the crane’s winches failed. 

As with most crane collapses, damage doesn’t stop with the crane itself.  As the Youtube poster, malaycobra, points out in the description, “as you can see the correct radius hadn't been chosen to let the drag line boom clear the M4600-based Transilift boom.” The poster also notes that the official report after the incident cited “operator error” as the cause.

One of the crane operators was injured and it’s believed that his injuries were minor.  HLI Consulting posted several up close pictures of the aftermath of the crane collapsed on their Flickr page, which you can check out here.

WARNING: there is strong language in the video...

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