Thread: Five dead from NYC crane collapse - Two still missing.

Five dead from NYC crane collapse
Two people were still missing
By KAREN MATTHEWS, Associated Press Writers
13 minutes ago

NEW YORK - The body of a construction worker was pulled from the rubble Monday at the site of a crane collapse, raising the death toll to five and dimming hopes more survivors would be discovered. Two people were still missing.

The crane rose 19 stories and was attached to an apartment tower under construction when it broke away Saturday and toppled like a tree onto buildings as far as a block away. Workers had managed to move large pieces of the crane away by Monday.

Two people — a woman and a construction worker — were believed to be inside a town house that was demolished when the crane came crashing down on the Manhatatn neighborhood a few blocks from the United Nations on the city's east side.

The missing woman had come from Miami to celebrate St. Patrick's Day and to visit a friend who lived in the town house, said John LaGreco, owner of Fubar, a saloon on the ground floor of the town house. The woman was in her friend's second-floor apartment at the time of the accident, he said. Her friend was rescued, he said.

Debris was being cleared "delicately and meticulously" to prevent further damage, said Buildings Commissioner Patricia Lancaster, who joined Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other officials at the scene on Sunday.

Twenty-four others were injured, including 11 first responders, Bloomberg said. Eight people remained hospitalized, officials said.

Officials were investigating whether human or mechanical error led to the construction-site accident, which the mayor described as among the city's worst. City officials said the broken crane passed inspection Friday.

Investigators were focusing on a heavy-duty collar used to tie the crane to the building's side, including whether a series of hoists and nylon straps was strong enough to sustain its weight, Lancaster told the New York Times.

The city had answered 38 complaints and issued more than a dozen violations in the past 27 months to the construction site where a 43-story high-rise condominium was going up. None of the violations was related to the crane, Bloomberg said.

On Sunday, the Reliance Construction Group, the project's contractor, released a statement expressing sympathy to the families of the dead and injured and said it was cooperating with government investigators.

"We have already launched our own internal investigation to understand exactly what caused this tragedy and we believe it is prudent not to comment further at this time," the company said.

The four workers killed in the accident were identified as Wayne Bleidner, 51, of Pelham; Brad Cohen, 54, of Farmingdale; Anthony Mazza, 39; and Aaron Stephens, 45, of New York City, police said Sunday. The worker found Monday had not yet been identified.

About 250 cranes operate in the city on any given day, and the accident shouldn't alarm New Yorkers living near high-rise construction sites, the mayor said. "This is a very tragic but also a very rare occurrence," he said.

But neighborhood residents and a Manhattan borough official raised concerns about city inspections at the apartment tower.

Retired ironworker Kerry Walker, who with his wife lived in the top-floor apartment of the four-story town house and left minutes before the collapse, had complained that the crane appeared dangerously unstable, his stepson said.

"He knows all about cranes and said this one had no braces, everything was too minimal," John Viscardi said. "He told one friend on the phone that 'if you don't hear from me, it's because the crane fell on my house.'"

___

Associated Press writers Karen Matthews and Richard Pyle contributed to this report.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080317/..._PYqdkG7pH2ocA

Toll from NYC crane collapse hits 6
By KAREN MATTHEWS, Associated Press Writers
21 minutes ago

NEW YORK - The bodies of two construction workers have been found at the site of a crane collapse in Manhattan, bringing the death toll to six.

The two workers were found Monday as authorities searched the debris. The Saturday collapse injured dozens of people and damaged six buildings.

A seventh woman who was visiting the city for St. Patrick's Day festivities is still missing. Authorities believe she was in a nearby town house that was demolished when the crane came crashing down.

The cause of the collapse is under investigation.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080317/...idB7RPK4Ks0NUE

Toll from NYC crane collapse hits 7
By KAREN MATTHEWS, Associated Press Writers
1 hour, 13 minutes ago

ers:

NEW YORK - The last of seven bodies was pulled from the rubble Monday at the site of a crane collapse that obliterated a town house and severely damaged other buildings.

Six construction workers and a woman in town for St. Patrick's Day were killed Saturday when the crane broke away from an apartment tower under construction and toppled like a tree onto buildings as far as a block away. The last three bodies were found Monday.

A preliminary city investigation found that the crane toppled after a steel collar used to tie it to the side of the building fell as workers attempted to install it.

When the equipment fell it damaged a lower steel collar that was a major anchor securing the tower crane. Investigators say that with the elimination of the lower support the counter-weights at the top of the crane's tower caused it to fall.

The crane, which rose 19 stories, came crashing down on a Manhattan neighborhood a few blocks from the United Nations on the city's east side.

All the dead were construction workers except for a woman who was in the four-story town house that was demolished when the crane fell on it.

The woman had come from Miami to celebrate St. Patrick's Day and to visit a friend who lived in the town house, said John LaGreco, owner of Fubar, a saloon on the ground floor of the town house. The woman was in her friend's second-floor apartment at the time of the accident, he said. Her friend was rescued, he said.

Twenty-four others were injured, including 11 first responders, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said. Eight people remained hospitalized Monday, officials said.

The accident occurred while workers were adding tower sections to extend the crane upwards, an operation known as "jumping" the crane, said Kate Lindquist, a spokeswoman for city buildings department.

While crews were jumping the crane to the 18th floor, a steel collar used to tie the crane to the side of the building fell as workers attempted to install it. That damaged a lower steel collar installed at the ninth floor that served as a major anchor securing the tower crane to the building under construction.

The blocks around the construction site consist mostly of low-rise residential buildings but in recent years developers have erected a number of big condo towers, sparking concerns among residents about the pace of development.

The city had answered 38 complaints and issued more than a dozen violations in the past 27 months to the construction site where a 43-story high-rise condominium was going up. None of the violations was related to the crane, Bloomberg said.

On Sunday, the Reliance Construction Group, the project's contractor, released a statement expressing sympathy to the families of the dead and injured and said it was cooperating with government investigators.

Four workers killed in the accident were identified as Wayne Bleidner, 51, of Pelham; Brad Cohen, 54, of Farmingdale; Anthony Mazza, 39; and Aaron Stephens, 45, of New York City, police said Sunday. The three people found Monday had not yet been identified.

About 250 cranes operate in the city on any given day, and the accident shouldn't alarm New Yorkers living near high-rise construction sites, the mayor said. "This is a very tragic but also a very rare occurrence," he said.

But neighborhood residents and a Manhattan borough official raised concerns about city inspections at the apartment tower.

The neighborhood was struggling to return to normal Monday. One lane of Second Avenue reopened to traffic, and many stores and bars were open for business.

The manager of an Irish bar noted how fortunate it was that the accident didn't happen Monday, when hundreds of thousands of people thronged nearby Fifth Avenue for the annual St. Patrick's Day parade. There are about a half dozen Irish bars in the neighborhood.

"If it happened today there would be carnage," said Jamison's Pub manager Michael Mullooly.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080317/...Esli_.I6FH2ocA

Inspector arrested in NYC crane collapse
AP - 14 minutes ago

NEW YORK - A city inspector has been charged with lying about checking on a construction crane that later collapsed, killing seven people in a dense Manhattan neighborhood, officials said Thursday.

Edward Marquette was arrested Wednesday on charges of falsifying business records, buildings Commissioner Patricia Lancaster said.

"We will not tolerate this kind of behavior at the Department of Buildings," she said.

A complaint about the crane was logged March 4 to a city hot line, officials said, and Marquette said he inspected it. It was later determined he had not.

However, Lancaster said it is very unlikely an inspection would have prevented the accident because the parts of the crane that failed were not on site on March 4.

Marquette, 46, was arraigned in state Supreme Court and released without bail. His lawyer, Kate Moguletscu, had no comment as she left court.

Lancaster said that in addition to suspending Marquette, she has ordered a full audit of his inspection reports over the past six months, and also of the cranes and derricks unit of the department.

The collapse pulverized a brownstone and damaged several other buildings.

The gigantic piece of machinery toppled over when a six-ton steel collar used to secure the crane to the building came loose, plunging into another collar that acted as a major anchor. Without that support, it came tumbling down with terrifying force.

The collapse followed weeks of complaints by people in the neighborhood that the crane didn't appear safe.

Bruce Silberblatt, the retired contractor who called in the complaint, said he was stunned by the arrest.

"My first reaction was astonishment. My second reaction is anger that a person would have the gall to do this," Silberblatt said.

Earlier, city officials said they had started inspecting every construction crane in use around New York City, though authorities have said there's no indication that Saturday's accident points to a larger problem with cranes.

The inspections began Wednesday, Buildings Department spokeswoman Kate Lindquist said.



http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080320/...mlExxU7jKs0NUE

Rigger acquitted in deadly '08 NYC crane collapse
By Jennifer Peltz, Associated Press Writer 22 mins ago


NEW YORK – A crane rigger was acquitted Thursday of manslaughter charges stemming from the collapse of a New York City crane in 2008, a disaster that killed six construction workers and a tourist, hurt two dozen others and left a swath of damage in midtown Manhattan.

A judge delivered the verdict in the trial of William Rapetti, who was also acquitted of failing to file some city business taxes. He was the only person to face criminal charges in the collapse, which occurred near the U.N. headquarters.

Prosecutors say Rapetti did a recklessly inadequate job of securing the nearly 200-foot crane as it was being extended upward.

Rapetti's lawyer said that the rigger did his work carefully, but that the crane was unsteady because of engineering decisions and shoddy welding that weren't Rapetti's responsibility. Rapetti declined a jury.

The accident — and a second New York crane collapse that killed two people two months later — raised questions about crane safety around the country, spurring new inspections and other measures from New York to Chicago to Dallas.

The verdict came after a nearly monthlong trial that ranged from technical details of crane design to emotional accounts from survivors of the disaster, including a man trapped in the rubble for about four hours before being rescued. State Supreme Court Justice Roger Hayes even took a field trip to see the wreckage in a police storage lot.

Rapetti showed no reaction as the verdict was read, but afterward, the red-eyed rigger hugged his sobbing wife at the courtroom rail.

Prosecutors, city building officials and the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration attributed the collapse to the failure of four heavy-duty polyester straps that Rapetti and his crew were using temporarily to fasten a more than 11,000-pound steel collar around the crane on March 15, 2008. The collar was part of an assembly designed to link the crane to the condominium tower it was helping to build.

The crane manufacturer called for using eight of the $50 straps for the job, but Rapetti used four — one seriously worn — even though six new straps were provided to him, according to prosecutors and testimony from others involved in the construction. He also didn't pad the straps to keep them from fraying against the crane's metal edges, a precaution outlined on the straps' own warning label.

"He disregarded every standard that applied to this job," Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Deborah Hickey said in a closing argument.

The worn strap broke, overloading the remaining straps and breaking them, prosecutors said. The collar then shot down the crane, rupturing other collar assemblies farther down and destabilizing the crane, the investigations found.

Rapetti, who was injured in the collapse himself, didn't testify. His lawyers argued that the rigger was keenly aware of safety and followed accepted norms in using the straps, and that they weren't to blame for the collapse.

"When you look at the complete picture ... it's blatantly obvious that there was no recklessness by Mr. Rapetti," defense lawyer Arthur Aidala said during his summation.

An engineer hired by Rapetti's lawyers suggested the rig fell because of welding and other problems in metal beams that were part of the collar assemblies. Under his theory, one of the beams failed, tipping the crane — which wasn't anchored to the ground as cranes commonly are, according to the engineer who designed it. The design relied instead on the collars and beams to keep the crane in place.

The engineer, Peter Stroh, testified that he believed the design was safe nonetheless, and that he had ordered some problems with the beams to be fixed.

About 60 to 80 people die in crane-related incidents nationwide in an average year, according to OSHA, which doesn't have figures on the deadliest collapses. Others include a 1989 crane collapse in San Francisco that killed five people and a July 2008 crane collapse in Houston that took four lives.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100722/...collapse/print

Material being lifted by crane in NYC falls; 10 injured
By VERENA DOBNIK, Associated Press - 16 hrs ago

NEW YORK — A piece of mechanical equipment being lifted by a crane at a Manhattan office building broke free Sunday morning and fell about 28 stories to the sidewalk below, causing minor injuries to 10 people, officials said.

Two of the injured were construction workers, while the others were pedestrians and occupants of passing cars, Mayor Bill de Blasio said. All were struck by falling debris.

Police said the call came in around 10:45 a.m. Officers who responded to the high-rise building in Midtown East found that the crane's payload had broken free as it was heading to the top of the building. It fell to the sidewalk, shearing the side of the building along the way. The building is wider at the base and narrows at the higher floors.

De Blasio, speaking to reporters on Madison Avenue a block from the accident, called it "obviously, a very serious incident."

"Thank God, this incident occurred at an hour of the day on a weekend when there were not too many people around," he said.

Buildings Department Commissioner Rick Chandler said it was typical for work to be done on weekends when equipment such as a massive crane is being used, and all the permits for the work involving the crane were "in place."

He also said there have been no complaints about the crane. "We think this device, in this preliminary stage, is in good state and we'll follow up with that," Chandler said.

Authorities said a full investigation is underway. Streets were closed in the surrounding area, and officials hoped to have them open again by Monday morning's rush hour.



http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/mat...id=ansnewsap11

Material being lifted by crane in NYC falls; 10 injured
By VERENA DOBNIK, Associated Press - 16 hrs ago

NEW YORK — A piece of mechanical equipment being lifted by a crane at a Manhattan office building broke free Sunday morning and fell about 28 stories to the sidewalk below, causing minor injuries to 10 people, officials said.

Two of the injured were construction workers, while the others were pedestrians and occupants of passing cars, Mayor Bill de Blasio said. All were struck by falling debris.

Police said the call came in around 10:45 a.m. Officers who responded to the high-rise building in Midtown East found that the crane's payload had broken free as it was heading to the top of the building. It fell to the sidewalk, shearing the side of the building along the way. The building is wider at the base and narrows at the higher floors.

De Blasio, speaking to reporters on Madison Avenue a block from the accident, called it "obviously, a very serious incident."

"Thank God, this incident occurred at an hour of the day on a weekend when there were not too many people around," he said.

Buildings Department Commissioner Rick Chandler said it was typical for work to be done on weekends when equipment such as a massive crane is being used, and all the permits for the work involving the crane were "in place."

He also said there have been no complaints about the crane. "We think this device, in this preliminary stage, is in good state and we'll follow up with that," Chandler said.

Authorities said a full investigation is underway. Streets were closed in the surrounding area, and officials hoped to have them open again by Monday morning's rush hour.



http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/mat...id=ansnewsap11

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