{"id":8803,"date":"2016-11-23T14:03:27","date_gmt":"2016-11-23T14:03:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/minutes.machine.market\/?p=8803"},"modified":"2016-11-23T14:03:27","modified_gmt":"2016-11-23T14:03:27","slug":"crane-operator-dies-as-6500-lb-steel-beam-falls-and-crushes-cab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/machine.market\/blog\/crane-operator-dies-as-6500-lb-steel-beam-falls-and-crushes-cab\/","title":{"rendered":"Crane Operator and Flagman killed as 6,500 lb steel beam falls and crushes cab in NYC"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A steel beam plummeted four stories and killed a crane operator and another worker Tuesday at a construction site in Queens, officials said.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"476\" height=\"267\" src=\"http:\/\/abc7ny.com\/video\/embed\/?pid=1621153\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The 6,500-pound I-beam was being hoisted into place when it came loose \u2014 possibly after a rigging rope failed \u2014 and slammed into the crane\u2019s cab. It crushed 47-year-old operator George Smith and Elizandro Enriquez Ramos, 43, a flagman standing nearby. They were killed instantly, authorities said.<\/p>\n<p>Ramos, a father of three girls who lived in Jamaica, Queens, was remembered as a hardworking, humble man.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe was a good man and a good husband,\u201d said his heartbroken widow Sandra Ramos, 35. \u201cHe was a hardworking man who provided for his family. It\u2019s Thanksgiving, I\u2019m going to be without my husband. He left behind three daughters who will be orphans now.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Smith lived in Mill Basin, Brooklyn.<\/p>\n<p>The two workers were part of a crew erecting a six-story residential building at 81-10 134th St. in Briarwood.<\/p>\n<p>The tragedy occurred at 12:11 p.m. \u2014 but it wasn\u2019t until just after 4:30 p.m. that authorities were able to extricate Smith\u2019s body from the flattened machine.<\/p>\n<p>Department of Buildings Commissioner Rick Chandler said the incident was under investigation and no cause has yet been determined \u2014 although there were indications a snapped cable was to blame.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRight now our preliminary discussions are leaning toward material failure with the rigging rope itself,\u201d Chandler said from the scene.<\/p>\n<p>Tuesday\u2019s winds \u2014 reaching between 20-to-30 mph and sometimes even gusting up to 40 mph \u2014 didn\u2019t appear to be a factor, he added.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s been windy today. The department has issued a couple of wind advisories over the weekend. But I want to be emphatic \u2014 we\u2019re not sure that played any role,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>City regulations require crane operators to stop lifting loads when wind speeds at worksites reach 30 mph \u2014 but Chandler said it\u2019s up to the individual sites to follow the rules.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe license the operators of these machines. They are directed with their teams to make the decision as to whether the wind speeds are adequate for what they can lift,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>The mobile crane at the Briarwood site has a 232-foot boom. It was last inspected in June, according to Department of Buildings records.<\/p>\n<p>There wasn\u2019t a master rigger on the site because the job didn\u2019t require it, department officials said, in part because the crane\u2019s boom length was under 250 feet.<\/p>\n<p>Ramos\u2019 18-year-old daughter, Josseline Ramos, recalled last seeing her dad early Tuesday and called for an investigation into her father\u2019s death.<\/p>\n<p>Mayor de Blasio said the workers\u2019 deaths were a \u201ctragedy\u201d and said a full investigation of the site was underway.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe need to know, of course, right away whether it was mechanical, was it human error. We don\u2019t know yet,\u201d the mayor said at a news conference outside 1 Police Plaza less than an hour after the beam fell.<\/p>\n<p>Although city officials said wind was an unlikely contributor to the fatal scene, a labor leader questioned the wisdom of working on such a windy day.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m amazed that somebody was crazy enough to use a mobile crane today,\u201d said Pete Corrigan, of the New York District Council of Carpenters.<\/p>\n<p>Ninety percent of his workers were off their jobs Tuesday because of the weather, he said.<\/p>\n<p>The crane is owned by Cranes Express, the city said.<\/p>\n<p>The Staten Island-based company was cited by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration in August 2015 after an incident at a jobsite in Cliffside Park, N.J., records show. The firm, listed by OSHA as nonunion, agreed to pay a $3,500 penalty. A worker at Cranes Express declined comment.<\/p>\n<p>Tuesday\u2019s incident is the latest in a series of crane-related fatalities that have plagued the city in recent years.<\/p>\n<p>On Feb. 5, pedestrian David Wichs, 38, died in Tribeca when the long arm of a crawler crane smashed to the street. Its operator was trying to lower it because of nasty weather. That crane was only approved to work in winds under 20 mph.<\/p>\n<p>Those operators caught using cranes in dangerous conditions face fines \u2014 which rose to $10,000 from $4,800 after Wichs\u2019 death. Last month, a group of construction trade organizations filed a lawsuit asking a judge to nullify the 30-mph rule and heftier fines. There was no scientific basis to the city\u2019s edict, they argued.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A steel beam plummeted four stories and killed a crane operator and another worker Tuesday at a construction site in Queens, officials said. The 6,500-pound I-beam was being hoisted into place when it came loose \u2014 possibly after a rigging rope failed \u2014 and slammed into the crane\u2019s cab. It crushed 47-year-old operator George Smith [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8804,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":""},"categories":[5,7],"tags":[91],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v14.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Crane Operator and Flagman killed as 6,500 lb steel beam falls and crushes cab in NYC - MachineMarket Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow\" \/>\n<meta name=\"googlebot\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta name=\"bingbot\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cranemarket.com\/blog\/crane-operator-dies-as-6500-lb-steel-beam-falls-and-crushes-cab\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Crane Operator and Flagman killed as 6,500 lb steel beam falls and crushes cab in NYC - MachineMarket Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A steel beam plummeted four stories and killed a crane operator and another worker Tuesday at a construction site in Queens, officials said. The 6,500-pound I-beam was being hoisted into place when it came loose \u2014 possibly after a rigging rope failed \u2014 and slammed into the crane\u2019s cab. 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