Big Blue Crane Incident Case Study

Big Blue Crane Incident – Milwaukee baseball stadium (1999)

On January 1999, workers began work on assembling the roof of Milwaukee’s new baseball stadium known as Miller Park. The work was to be accomplished by a crane named big blue. Big blue was to lift the segments of the roof in place. Each roof segment weighed 400 tons which is almost as much as the weight of a Boeing 747 airplane. 31 lifts were needed to complete the work required to complete the roof. In order to complete the work the parts of the roof needed to be placed in specific positions. Therefore, big blue was guided by three workers suspended nearby in a man basket. The weather conditions at the time of first pick were harsh and not conducive to accomplish the precision
At the time of the operation, the workers and the supervisors failed to follow many established construction industry regulations. The first and foremost of these was the guideline $1926.1425. According to the guideline the employer must “….ensure that employees are not in the fall zone under a suspended load.”(OSHA, 2013) When the big blue crane fell on its 9th pick, it took with it three workers that were suspended in a man basket nearby and were giving it directions to put the roof in specific place. Those three workers were killed instantly. Had they been moved clear of the fall zone, they would have survived and the ensuing litigation could have been avoided. In addition to this, guideline $1926.1402 states that operators “must know the basic crane capacities, limitations and job
Wind Hazards associated with the task at hand were not identified in advance or ultimately ignored. Also, Hazards positions/locations such as those of the workers suspended from the basket were left in the fall zone of the crane. The lax attitude towards safety operations and standard procedure contributed to the death of 3 innocent employees and lead to the delaying of the project for another one