mobile cranes Archives

Dropped beam proves fatal

A 20 metre steel I-beam slipped from a mobile crane in Barra Mansa to the south of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil last month killing an elderly pedestrian.

The beam – part of a steel building – was being lifted by a Sany truck crane owned by the rental company Jocar, when its slipped out of the slings and dropped into the street below. It landed on a woman, Orecina Marta de Souza, 79, killing her instantly.

The incident occurred on Friday the 13th as she walked past the construction site – a hotel – with her son when it happened. He was also injured in the incident.

Sany rebrands in Europe

Sany Germany, the wholly owned subsidiary of Chinese crane and equipment manufacturer Sany, has rebranded the business as Sany Europe, changing its logo and launching a new website.

The company says the change is designed to better reflect its presence in Europe, where it is represented in 13 countries – mainly by exclusive distributors.

Sany Europe managing director Bart Decroos, said: “The name change is a take-off for a new era. It just didn’t reflect who we are any more, and definitely not who we want to be. Therefore we’ve taken this action. We’ve also seized this opportunity to improve our corporate identity to strengthen further our brand recognition.”

We have just received confirmation that the company will no longer be exhibiting at this year’s Intermat exhibition. It has cancelled its provisional booking in the external area, where it has exhibited in the past two shows.

Liebherr provides rescue sheets

Liebherr has started to provide rescue sheets for its mobile cranes in order to assist with crane recovery following an incident.

All Liebherr LTM and LTC cranes which comply with stage 3b or higher emissions will now come with a rescue sheet as standard. Available separately and located behind the driver’s seat, the rescue sheet provides detailed information about the structure of the crane and its cab as well as the best places to cut the bodywork open in order to free a trapped operator. It also provides information on the locations, volumes and hazard classes of the crane’s fuel and oil.

Rescue sheets have been available for new cars, commercial vehicles and trucks for some time now, although cranes are a niche product and relatively unknown to fire and emergency services. Liebherr said the aim of the rescue sheets is to enable the fast rescue of passengers and the safe recovery of the crane following an incident.

Link Belt moves into South Africa

Link-Belt has appointed Eqstra Industrial Equipment of South Africa as its distributor for Southern Africa.

The agreement covers 17 countries, including Angola, Botswana, Burundi, Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

Eqstra will sell and market the full line of Link Belt cranes, and provide parts and service support for new and existing cranes throughout the region. The company is part of a Eqstra Holdings which is publicly traded and has a wide range of operations including car leasing and fleet management and Industrial fork truck sales in the UK through Impact Handling (UK) where it is the Cat forklift dealer. The equipment divisions are based in Johannesburg with outlets in a number of the countries that it covers.

The Industrial and heavy equipment division also distributes Toyota fork trucks, Broderson carry-deck cranes, Konecranes reachstackers and also lists Terex All Terrain, Rough Terrain and crawler cranes, although it is no longer listed as an official dealer.

Other divisions distribute Altec and Socage vehicle mounted aerial work platforms and Fassi loader cranes, while it also produces a couple of smaller articulated loader cranes of its own.

Link-Belt international sales manager Roy Burger said: “We believe that when you invest in a Link-Belt crane, you invest in outstanding customer support. As a result, we are delighted to enter into this agreement with Eqstra Heavy Equipment, whose philosophy of building lifetime partnerships with their customers underscores our vision to be a leader in customer service and satisfaction.”

Grove for Crowland

UK rental company Crowland Cranes has added a 60 tonne Grove GMK3060 to its fleet.

The crane follows the first four axle 100 tonne Tadano ATF100G-4 in the UK delivered in January. The GMK3060 was handed over to Paul Bishop, Crowland Cranes hire manager at its Peterborough depot by Jerry Welford of Manitowoc UK.

“The GMK3060 was chosen because we already operate a GMK3055 which has proven to be a reliable taxi crane, and the GMK3060 has had a nice facelift with a larger counterweight configuration and increased load chart which fits nicely in the 60 tonne range that we currently operate whilst still remaining a very compact three axle machine,” said Crowland’s Pete Issitt.

“The crane also has the newly released Manitowoc ‘Crane Control System’ (CCS) which amongst other things enables operators to select the correct boom configuration for the lift required in a very simple way, saving rigging time and searching through pages upon pages of load charts.”

Another Tadano for Stoddart

UK based rental company Stoddart Crane Hire has taken delivery of a 130 tonne Tadano ATF130G.

The new crane is equipped with a 60 metre main boom and an 18 metre bi-fold swingaway extension. Maximum counterweight is 42 tonnes, while the overall width is 2.75 metres, an advantage in the Scottish Highlands region that the company serves, compared to a three metre chassis.

The new unit also features multi-point outrigger settings for greater flexibility in confined job sites and Tadano’s Lift-adjuster system which automatically compensates for boom deflection to give a true vertical lift from the ground.

The company, based at Muir of Ord, was established in 2004, and runs a fleet of cranes ranging from five tonnes to a 180 tonne Tadano ATF180. It has built up a wide customer base, thanks its says to a strong focus on quality and customer service.

It also handles heavy recovery jobs, and supplies heavy 6×6 trucks which are frequently used to tow trucks and cranes on to wind farm sites, where the access roads are challenging and steep.