Spider lift accident

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I would have thought you could read that link without joining.

In a nutshell, the upper boom of a 83'cmc broke near the knuckle, worker badly hurt but alive, cause undetermined.
 
No there isn't a weld seam right there. From what Ive heard from some guys from the company is the main tube just failed. The operator is busted up pretty bad there is a Gofundme for him. I am not sure how to link it but the organizer is Aron Lucente.
 
Another tree guy in town runs one of those. I called him today and left a message about this. He called me back and said the only thing worst I could of let him know was his wife was sleeping around !
 
Those breaks are very clean looking. If there is no weld at that point, then what would cause such a clean break at the same place on two different units?
 
I'd like to see some close up pics of that area.
I got this email from All Access Equipment earlier today:

Dear customers,

We are honored that you have placed your trust in CMC and All Access Equipment. Over the years, we have heard from so many of our customers who are very pleased with their lifts and our continuing service. We are always humbled to read those reviews and hope you too have been pleased with your lift.

Your lift is best-in-class and CMC is one of the World’s premier manufacturers of these machines.

Customer service and safety are paramount at CMC and All Access Equipment.
So too is transparency.

In the past several years, we have sold more than 1000 of these lifts. Unfortunately accidents can happen with these lifts just like any other equipment. We were very concerned to hear about two recent accidents. In both cases, we immediately sent our top technician to review the lift and circumstances of the accident. We also immediately contacted our manufacturer, CMC. As a result of those steps, we at All Access Equipment thought it would be important and helpful for you, our customers, to hear directly from CMC.

Here is a statement from them:
As specialists in the production of aerial platforms; we design, test and manufacture machines whose purpose is to preserve the safety and the life of the operators in every way possible.

Working on an elevated platform comes with some inherent risks, and we are working closely with the lift owners and OSHA to find out all we can about the two accidents. We are committed to assist with these investigations and learn as much as possible about what happened.

One thing we are sure of: If the lifts are used correctly and the safety protocols are followed, these machines are safe, effective and can remain in productive service for decades. Our years of design and testing procedures give us a great deal of confidence in the machine, its construction and performance characteristics.

In addition to our investigation, we have observed posts on social media of the lift being used improperly. To address this, All Access Equipment issued a warning communication in December 2020 to all CMC aerial lift owners in the United States reminding them to comply with safety regulations and procedures as indicated in the Owner’s Operating Manual.

To reiterate, it is important that all owners and operators are following the ANSI/SAIA A92.22 (OPERATORS RESPONSIBILITIES OF SAFE USE) and A92.24 (OPERATORS MANUAL OF RESPONSIBILITIES of TRAINING REQUIREMENTS). We must emphasize that the lift is designed to carry personnel and tools only. It should never be used in any other way. Doing so can subject the lift to extreme loads it is not designed to handle.

To address intentional or unintentional misuse of the equipment, we are immediately launching an awareness campaign to ensure that your equipment is safe and is being used properly.

Sincerely,

CMC
 
i just can't imagine the Maurer's ever using the lift as a crane or load handler. they are extremely pro. i may be wrong.
 
If they are 2 person baskets, they are rated for 500 pounds, so i can't see 50 pounds doing anything. Very odd on the break, that's confusing to me on how clean that is. My only idea would be since it's roughly in the middle between the hydraulic cylinder and the pin, maybe it's flexing and work hardening there, and engineering didn't calculate the cycles to failure or stresses correctly. The other thought i had is if they were somehow dumb enough to splice a section together right there, and then ground the welds flat for "appearance" or trying to hide it or something. I've never seen square tube or pipe break clean like that, so there's gotta be something goofy going on.
 
Buried under paint makes that almost impossible to check, and why would anyone be looking right there anyways? Clean break right there is very wierd, usually failures are right by connections and stuff, where stresses are concentrated. The odds of anyone catching that kind of failure is very small, because I'm not sure whatv exactly they would be looking for. It's not like they are going to mag the entire boom, that would cost a ton.
 
Cracks should appear in the paint prior to failure. Midway between the fixed points sees a huge amount of stress. The pin location sees more and that’s why the boom was reinforced with the gussets but the area between gets torqued on a like a mofo. Hard for me to explain but seems easy to grasp in my head. I’ll see if I can find the physics behind my thoughts on this tonight yet.
Leverages and beverages

also I do look over my entire boom before I fly it along with the framework. Takes minutes to do. Most people don’t even do a walk around of their vehicle daily so I really doubt they do a daily boom inspection
 
It takes a good eye to see a crack/stress fracture. Most people wouldn’t know what to look for.

“Two separate identical breaks is not a good sign.”

That is an indication of a poor design to me, I could be wrong. The manufacturer’s first line of defense is to cry operator abuse but you’ll probably see that section redesigned in the future.
 
Oh i agree the whole thing sees a ton of stress, but you aren't gonna find that under paint. Honestly you wouldn't find that if it was bare polished steel. With a break that smooth it failed very suddenly, not slowly tearing leaving jagged bent ripped edges like a normal failure. Something looks very wrong there. You can't see small cracks with the naked eye, you either need to mag test them or die penetrant. I'm sorry, I've been fixing torn steel for over half of my life, there's a reason why they developed all these technical ways to find cracks non destructively. I've also prepared samples to test destructively, they would pull a part from the production line and i would cut it up and rip sections apart to make sure they were failing at the proper loads.
 
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