Two killed in NYC crane collapse
NEW YORK – A construction crane snapped and smashed into an apartment building with a thunderous roar Friday, killing two workers in the city’s second such tragedy in 2 1/2 months and renewing fears about the safety of hundreds of cranes towering over the New York skyline.
The collapse happened despite stepped-up inspections and a shake-up in the city Buildings Department after the earlier accident, which killed seven people in March.
The 200-foot crane fell apart on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, where contractors were building a 32-story luxury condo complex, about 12 stories high.
Scott Bair, a foreman who arrived at the site seconds after the crane fell, said several co-workers told him the crane had just dropped off a load of materials on the top of the building and was turning to pick up a load from the street when “the turntable popped off – even though there are 16 bolts that hold it down. It could be an issue with the bolts.”
The turntable is a piece of equipment that helps the crane rotate.
Acting Buildings Commissioner Robert LiMandri said that investigators “will be focusing on a particular weld that failed” on the crane, and noted that the crane’s model, the Kodiak, is out of production and one of only four in the city.
LiMandri also suspended several crane operations in the city and called an emergency meeting of experts today to address crane safety.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg called the accident “unacceptable and intolerable” but said the city appeared to have followed regulations. “Sadly, we have construction accidents all over the world,” he added.
With the city going through a supercharged building boom and an estimated 250 cranes in operation as of mid-March, New York has seen a series of deadly construction accidents. Nine people have died in crane accidents so far this year, versus none in all of last year, and two in 2006.
The crane toppled just after 8 a.m., destroying a penthouse apartment across the street and knocking off balconies on the apartment building as it plunged 20 stories into a heap of twisted steel. The city said in a statement that the cab where the operator sits had separated from the crane’s tower.
“The sound was like a thunderclap. Then, an earthquake,” said Peter Barba, who lives on the seventh floor.
Killed were the crane operator, Donald Leo, 30, and another worker, 27-year-old Ramadan Kurtaj. A third construction worker was seriously injured, and one pedestrian was treated for minor injuries.
Bair, the construction foreman, said one of the workers on his 40-man crew was taken to the hospital with his “chest slashed open.” His eyes filled with tears, Bair said his own life was saved because he left to get an egg sandwich for breakfast a block away just before the collapse.
“I thought, I’m hungry, and I want to go get something to eat – and that saved my life,” he said. When he returned to the site, “Everyone was shook up and crying. These are some hardened men, but they were crying.”
Bloomberg said the crane was a different model from the one that collapsed in March. “It looks like a pattern, but there’s no reason to think there’s any real connection,” he said.