NEW YORK (AP) — While authorities continue to investigate, a crane collapse After the crane rained thousands of pounds of steel debris onto a busy Manhattan thoroughfare on Wednesday, the owner and operator of the failed crane face an investigation into previous safety flaws.
New York Crane and Equipment Corp.’s tower crane was hauling concrete to the 36th floor of a luxury skyscraper when a fire broke out in the plane’s cabin, officials said. The flames burned through a cable holding the crane arm in place, sending the 180-foot boom crashing to the ground.
Although no one was seriously injured, the near miss brought back memories of previous crane collapses, including a number of incidents involving people linked to Wednesday’s accident.
Two of the city’s most catastrophic crane accidents occurred within two months of 2008, both involving New York Crane and Equipment Corp. cranes. Nine people lost their lives, prompting the city to revise its process for inspecting and regulating tower cranes.
Later that year, a construction worker fell to his death while helping to dismantle another company’s crane. One of the two crane operators whose license was suspended for eight months was Chris Van Duyne. The same man operated the crane that caught fire on Wednesday, officials said.
Phone messages left by Van Duyne and New York Crane were not immediately returned Thursday.
The cause of the fire is still under investigation. In the meantime, neither the crane company nor its operator has been publicly accused of misconduct.
While officials await answers, City Council member Pierina Sanchez, head of the council’s Housing and Construction Committee, said it was worrying that a crane company charged with previous safety flaws would again be linked to a serious incident.
“There is concern that a company with a history of on-site injuries and fatalities is continuing to do business in the City of New York,” she said. “Why do you still have a license?”
According to industry experts, following consecutive collapses 15 years ago, New York has imposed a stringent set of crane requirements that exceed those of other states.
Stephen Smith, the executive director of the Center for Building in North America, said the regulations – which require multiple city-specific licenses and a high level of insurance coverage – had the unintended consequence of discouraging new businesses from entering the New York market, which was effective a small launch enabled number of players dominating the industry.
“Crane collapses don’t happen that often. So if there are multiple high profile accidents happening at the same company, it doesn’t impact them positively,” added Smith. “You have to ask yourself whether we are not keeping more competent operators and companies away.”
New York Crane and Equipment Corp. was founded by James Lomma – known locally as the “King of the Cranes” – and has long been one of the city’s leading crane suppliers, helping to build the Hudson Yards project and the new World Trade Center.
But the Queens-based company also faced a number of criminal and civil lawsuits.
In March 2008, one of the company’s cranes on the East Side of Manhattan overturned, pulverizing buildings on the way down and fatally injuring seven people. Prosecutors blamed the accident on a crane operator’s poor work, but a grand jury acquitted him of the involuntary manslaughter charge after his attorney argued that poor welding and other factors were to blame.
Two months later, another Lomma-owned tower crane collapsed in the city, killing operator Donald Leo and a construction worker, Ramadan Kurtaj. Investigators blamed the collapse on a broken bearing made by a Chinese company that had warned Lomma it had no faith in the product.
Lomma was acquitted of involuntary manslaughter charges but was sued by workers’ families and ordered by an appeals court to pay $35 million for a series of “weak and egregious” decisions that led to the collapse. He filed for bankruptcy shortly thereafter and passed away in 2019. The company is currently run by Sal Isola, who did not respond to a request for comment.
In 2004, New York Crane and Construction Corp. accused of poor maintenance after another worker, Glenn Gonnert, fell to his death from the mast of a crane.
In court documents, the victim’s son said the accidents were partly due to defects that resulted in oil leaking from the crane’s engine and creating a slippery surface that allowed his father to fall to his death. The company denied wrongdoing.
