SEATTLE (AP) — Family members of two of the four people killed in an April 2019 crane collapse have filed wrongful death suits against companies involved in crane operations at the South Lake Union construction site.

Gusting winds knocked the crane over April 27, after workers prematurely removed pins holding sections together, leading to a tragedy that state regulators called “totally avoidable.” Lawsuits have also been filed by two people who were injured, and Seattle police continue to investigate.

The collapse killed: Alan Justad, 71, a former city planning official; Sarah Wong, a 19-year-old Seattle Pacific University student; and two ironworkers working on the crane – Andrew Yoder, 31, of Washington, and Travis Corbet, 33, of Oregon.

The Seattle Times reports Justad’s and Wong’s families filed suits in King County Superior Court in late December against Salem-based Morrow Equipment Co., GLY Construction, Northwest Tower Crane Service, Hillsboro-based Omega Morgan and Seaburg Construction — the five companies responsible for operating and dismantling the crane. The lawsuits seek unspecified damages.

Two other people, Sally Beaven and Ali Edriss, jointly sued the same companies in December. Beaven and Edriss claim they were injured as a result of the crane collapse.

The state Department of Labor and Industries faulted and fined GLY, Northwest Tower Crane and Morrow for failing to adequately supervise the crane disassembly, train workers and follow manufacturer procedures.

GLY CEO Todd Herb said in a statement his company welcomes “a thorough, fair and transparent review” of safety procedures as a result of the lawsuits. GLY was serving as general contractor for the project. None of the other companies offered comment.

The post Families of 2 Seattle crane collapse victims sue companies appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

By GENE JOHNSON
Associated Press

TUKWILA, Wash. (AP) — Washington state on Thursday fined three companies their roles in a crane collapse that killed four people in Seattle last April, with officials calling it “totally avoidable,” and Seattle Police confirmed that they have opened a criminal investigation.

The Department of Labor and Industries released the results of its investigation Thursday. It found, as experts suspected, that the crane toppled in a wind gust because the workers who were disassembling it prematurely removed pins securing sections of the crane’s mast, contrary to the manufacturer’s instructions.
The practice appears to have been common in the industry, even though it had led to fatal collapses before, investigators said.

The collapse occurred April 27 in the booming tech neighborhood of South Lake Union, where the crane had been used in the construction of a Google office building. Sections of the crane landed on the building and on traffic below, striking six vehicles. Two ironworkers on the crane were killed as were two people in cars. Four other people were injured.

“The incident that occurred was totally avoidable,” department Director Joel Sacks said at a news conference. “If the companies on site had followed the rules, the crane would not have fallen.”

Det. Patrick Michaud, a spokesman for Seattle Police, said he could offer no details about the criminal case except to say it is being headed by violent crimes detectives. Labor and Industries officials said they cooperated with information requests from police.

Regulators issued the biggest fine, $70,000, to Salem, Oregon-based Morrow Equipment Co., which supplied the crane to general contractor GLY. GLY was fined $25,000, and Northwest Tower Crane Service Inc., which provided the crew, was fined $12,000.

Morrow was most culpable because it was the expert on site and should have known and ensured the manufacturer’s instructions were followed, regulators said, while the other companies were cited for not having a supervisor present, inadequate training or other violations.

Two other companies that were investigated were not responsible, officials said.

The companies have 15 days to appeal. Morrow did not immediately return an email seeking comment. In an emailed statement, GLY President Ted Herb said the Bellevue-based company was deeply concerned by the collapse, cooperated with investigators and had already made changes.
Herb said the company will “do everything possible to protect our workers and the community.”

Brian Haight, crane program manager with the department, said that the manufacturer’s instructions say the crane should be dismantled in sections. As a secondary crane is attached to the top of the section being removed, workers pull the pins for that section only, leaving the rest of the tower secure. The pins are about 16 inches (40 cm) long and weigh 26 pounds (11.79 kilograms).

At the crew’s pre-task meeting that morning, they did not review the manufacturer’s instructions for crane removal, Haight said.

That afternoon, the secondary crane couldn’t function because of high winds. So the disassembly crew, while waiting for the winds to die down, decided to remove the pins up and down the tower crane and to loosen the bolts attaching the tower to its concrete base. When a gust of around 50 mph (80 kph) hit, the crane swayed and collapsed.

Early pin removal was blamed after a tower crane mast collapsed during disassembly in Dallas in 2012, killing two workers. Terry McGettigan, a tower crane specialist in Seattle, wrote a paper after the Dallas collapse warning about the danger of taking shortcuts.

Following the April collapse, the department issued a hazard warning that was shared among the crane industry internationally. It also asked crane companies in Washington to notify them of assembly or disassembly of any tower cranes, so that the department can send an auditor to inspect the crane and ensure proper procedures are followed.

It is also re-examining its rules for crane operations and is considering making that notification request mandatory instead of voluntary.
The $70,000 fine issued to Morrow was the maximum allowed under state regulations for a single, willful violation of workplace safety rules, unless a company has a prior history of such actions before, said Anne Soiza, the department’s assistant director.

David Beninger, a Seattle lawyer who plans to sue on behalf of one victim’s family, said the state’s investigation had explained how the collapsed happened, but not why.

“That’s what the civil litigation will try to get at,” he said. “We know procedures were broken, but how often, and why? This is a fairly widespread practice of cutting corners, and that’s a concern.”

The post ‘Totally avoidable’: 3 firms fined in Seattle crane collapse appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Oregon crane operators will be required to complete a national certification program after the state Occupational Safety and Health Administration adopted new rules.

The requirement comes amid greater scrutiny of crane safety since four people were killed in the April 27 collapse of a tower crane in Seattle.

Oregon’s move to update the crane operator certification rules has been in the works since the federal government issued new rules in November 2018. The rules adoption was not spurred by the Seattle crane collapse, OSHA spokesman Aaron Corvin stated in an email.

OSHA delayed enforcement of the rules until Jan. 1, 2020. That’s intended to give crane operators time to complete the required training, Corvin stated.

Crane operators had warned during the public comment period that training all crane operators quickly would be difficult.

“This difficulty largely stems from a shortage of training programs that would meet the nationally accredited standard required by the rule,” Corvin stated. “The training programs exist, but they lack the capacity needed to quickly train the amount of operators that are affected by this rule.”

Safety procedures have been placed under a magnifying lens in the aftermath of last month’s crane collapse at a Google building under construction in Seattle’s South Lake Union neighborhood. The crane was awaiting disassembly when it toppled in a modest gust, The Seattle Times reported. Two construction workers and two people on the ground died in the collapse. One of the crane workers had local ties: Travis Corbet, age 33, of Iron Workers Local 29 in Portland.

The Washington State Department of Labor and Industries is inspecting five companies that were working at the job site. The companies are GLY Construction Inc., Northwest Tower Crane Service Inc., Omega Morgan, Morrow Equipment Co. and Seaburg Construction Corp.

“That process can take up to six months from the time the inspection was opened,” said Frank Ameduri, spokesman for the department. “It could end sooner than that, but it can’t go longer than the six months.”

The department can levy fines if any violations are found. The citations would explain what went wrong on the Google job site, Ameduri said.

Ameduri said he could not comment on the investigation’s direction.

“While the inspection is ongoing, unfortunately there’s not a lot of detail we can share,” he said.

The Seattle Times, citing independent experts, reported bolts were likely loosened on the crane prior to it toppling.

Washington requires third-party certification of crane operators, and conducts inspections throughout the state. Most inspections are “self-referrals,” or inspectors checking crane sites on their own. The department receives few complaints, Ameduri said.

Oregon last updated its operator certification rules in 2002. The state plan is required to be at least as stringent as federal rules, so when the federal government updated its rules last year to require crane operators to complete a nationally accredited training program, OSHA followed suit.

OSHA does not require advance inspections of tower cranes before work begins, Corvin stated. A “competent person” must visually inspect a crane each day, and further inspections are required monthly and annually. OSHA crane inspections can be spurred by a scheduled visit, accidents, referrals or complaints. If infractions are found, OSHA can issue citations and will work with operators to eliminate hazards. If hazards cannot be fixed immediately, OSHA can issue a “red tag” notice, suspending crane operations.

OSHA has not changed its practices in response to the Seattle incident, Corvin stated.

Existing rules address crane disassembly. One requires that boom sections, suspension systems and components “must be rigged or supported to maintain stability upon the removal of the pins.”

Portland has been one of the busiest construction markets in the nation, with 30 tower cranes in the air as of January, according to Rider Levett Bucknall. The cranes are in use by a number of general contractors.

One major general contractor, Mortenson Construction, said it continues to emphasize safety.

“Mortenson safety and operations experts oversee all critical operations on its projects,” Dan Mehls, a vice president and general manager of the company, stated in an email response to questions. “Mortenson’s standard procedure is to prepare a detailed crane erection and dismantlement plan for all tower cranes and built-up cranes used on any of our projects. This plan includes input from our erection subcontractor, supplemental hoisting supplier, project management team and safety department.”

Several crane operators did not respond to messages seeking comment on safety procedures and OSHA’s new rules. Joseph Bowers, business manager of Iron Workers Local 29 in Portland, declined to comment.

Oregon has not suffered a catastrophic tower crane collapse in nearly four decades. The last such incident, in December 1980, killed two people during construction of the Glenn L. Jackson Bridge between Portland and Vancouver, Washington, according to OSHA.

A crane operator was killed in February 2015 when a metal beam pierced the crane’s cab on a job site in Northeast Portland.

The post Crane safety stays in the spotlight appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

By GENE JOHNSON
Associated Press

SEATTLE (AP) — It appears workers who were disassembling a construction crane had prematurely removed pins securing the sections of the crane’s mast to each other, and that could explain why it toppled Saturday, killing four people, experts said.

Crane accident investigator Tom Barth said Monday based on videos of the Seattle crane collapse that “if the pins had been in, that crane would not have fallen over.”

The crane’s mast fell over on Saturday afternoon as workers were taking it apart. Sections landed on top of the new Google building where it had been used and on traffic below, striking six vehicles. Two ironworkers on the crane were killed, as were two people in cars — a retired city employee and a college freshman. Four others were injured.

“The reason this tower fell over is ironworkers and the people working on it did not follow the manufacturer’s instructions for disassembling the crane,” Barth said.

Barth, who has been a tower crane operator, inspector and accident investigator for 38 years, said the only safe way to disassemble a tower crane is to do it by sections.

First, a line from another crane is secured to the top of the section being removed. Only then do workers remove the bolts that secure the section being removed to the one below it. The second crane lowers the section, Barth said.

The videos, including one from a dash camera in a car approaching as the crane fell, appear to show the sections of the tower crane separating cleanly, indicating the pins had likely been removed early, said Dave Kwass, a trial attorney who handles crane accident lawsuits.

“Where I would be starting as an investigator is getting a better grasp of what these two ironworkers who tragically were killed may have done in removing the pins,” Kwass said. “What I’m seeing is a crane that looks as though the pins were popped all the way down to the pedestal section.”

Kwass also suggested that the shifting weight of the workers at the top of the mast as they tried to grab the wind-swayed hook and line from the other crane might have helped push the mast over.

Early pin removal was blamed after a tower crane mast collapsed during disassembly in Dallas in 2012, killing two workers. Terry McGettigan, a tower crane specialist in Seattle, declined to comment on Saturday’s crash, but he wrote a paper on the Dallas collapse warning about the danger of taking shortcuts by loosening or removing the bolts in advance.

The Iron Workers Union Local 29 based in Portland, Oregon, and Local 86, in Seattle, represented the workers who died and did not respond to requests for comment Monday.

Washington Department of Labor and Industries inspectors finished their work at the scene Monday, said Tim Church, a department spokesman. He said it was too early to speculate on a cause.

The department on Monday expanded its investigation to include a fifth company: Seaburg Construction Corp., which employed the tower crane operator. The other companies are general contractor GLY, Northwest Tower Crane Service Inc., Omega Rigging and Machinery Moving Inc., and Morrow Equipment Co. LLC

“GLY and its sub-contractors involved with this tower crane accident are doing everything we can to investigate the incident,” the company said in a written statement. “We are cooperating fully with investigators and assisting the local authorities. At this early stage of the investigation, we have no further details.”

The ironworkers who died were identified by their unions as Andrew Yoder, 31, of Washington, and Travis Corbet, 33, of Oregon. Corbet’s wife, Samantha Corbet, told Seattle television stations that her husband had served in the U.S. Marine Corps for five years before becoming an ironworker.

They married last year and planned to go on their honeymoon in June.

Also killed were Seattle Pacific University freshman Sarah Wong, 19, and Alan Justad, 71, who retired in 2014 as deputy director of Seattle’s Department of Planning and Development.

In a written statement, Mayor Jenny Durkan called Justad “a true public servant.”

The post Experts: Missing pins possibly caused collapse appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

By LISA BAUMANN
Associated Press

SEATTLE (AP) — A construction crane fell from a building on Google’s new Seattle campus during a storm that brought wind gusts, crashing down onto one of the city’s busiest streets and killing four people.

One female and three males had died by the time firefighters had arrived Saturday afternoon, Fire Chief Harold Scoggins said. Two of the dead were ironworkers who had been inside the crane while the other two were people who were inside cars, Fire Department spokesman Lance Garland said.

A 25-year-old mother and her 4-month-old daughter were in a car that was smashed by the crane on its passenger side, and both managed to escape with only minor injuries, Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan said, calling it a miracle. They and a 28-year-old man were taken to Harborview Medical Center. A fourth person also was injured and treated at the scene.

The crane collapsed near the often-congested intersection of Mercer and Fairview Avenue just north of downtown in the South Lake Union neighborhood shortly before 3:30 p.m., Scoggins said.

The deadly collapse is sure to bring scrutiny about the safety of the dozens of cranes that dot the city’s skyscape. With Amazon, Google and other tech companies increasing their hiring in Seattle, the city has more cranes building office towers and apartment buildings than any other in the United States. As of January, there were about 60 construction cranes in Seattle.

Durkan said the city had a good track record with crane safety but that officials would conduct a review.

“It’s a horrible day in Seattle when something like this happens. But it’s a time when we come together because Seattle is a city that rallies around each other,” she said.

Officials do not yet know the cause of the collapse. Police and the state Department of Labor and Industries were investigating, which Durkan said could take months.

Daren Konopaski, the business manager for the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 302, which represents heavy-equipment operators, told The Seattle Times he understood the crane was being dismantled when high winds moved through the area.

“We don’t know, but that’s what seems to have happened here,” he said. “We are in the process of trying to get information.”

Durkan confirmed that people were actively working on top of the building Saturday, but she didn’t say whether the crane was being dismantled.

A line of showers moved over Seattle just about the time the crane fell, the National Weather Service said. An observation station on nearby Lake Union showed winds kicked up with gusts of up to 23 mph at 3:28 p.m., just about the time the crane fell.

“It was terrifying,” witness Esther Nelson, a biotech researcher who was working in a building nearby, told the Times. “The wind was blowing really strong,” she said, and added that the crane appeared to break in half.

“Half of it was flying down sideways on the building,” she said. “The other half fell down on the street, crossing both lanes of traffic.”

The office building the crane fell from was badly damaged, with several of its windows smashed.

A Google spokesperson said in a statement that the company was saddened to learn of the accident and that they were in communication with Vulcan, the real estate firm that is managing the site and working with authorities.

Harborview spokeswoman Susan Gregg said Saturday night that the mother and baby had been discharged, while the man injured was in satisfactory condition.

The King County Medical Examiner’s Office said it would not release names of people who died until Monday.

Tim Church, a spokesman for the Washington Department of Labor & Industries, said the agency formally opened an investigation into four companies — general contractor GLY, Northwest Tower Crane Service Inc., Omega Rigging and Machinery Moving Inc. and Morrow Equipment Co. LLC.

A crane collapsed in the Seattle suburb of Bellevue in 2006, damaging three neighboring buildings and killing a Microsoft attorney who was sitting in his living room. The state Department of Labor and Industries cited two companies for workplace-safety violations after an investigation that found a flawed design for the crane’s base.

“Trudi and I join all Washingtonians in extending our deepest condolences to the family and friends of the four people who died in this afternoon’s tragic accident,” Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee said in a statement. Inslee also said he hoped for a speedy and full recovery for those injured, thanked first responders and urged people to stay clear of the accident scene.

The post 4 die after construction crane topples in Seattle appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.