Crane Was Lifting Too Much Weight, Investigators of Airport Mishap Say
State investigators on Wednesday combed the wreckage of a giant crane at Los Angeles International Airport, and reached a tentative conclusion that the crane collapsed and killed a passer-by on Tuesday because steel girders it was lifting weighed too much.
“We’re still trying to put the pieces together. We don’t have anything definite at all,” said Bob Garcia, regional manager for Cal/OSHA. “The preliminary indication seems to be that probably the load was maybe too heavy to do what it did.”
He noted that the crane, owned and operated by Owl Crane and Rigging Co. of Compton, seemed structurally sound and had recently passed a safety inspection.
Bill Siener, district manager for the Department of Industrial Relations Division of Occupational Safety and Health, echoed Garcia. “We haven’t got the facts in yet. But it’s an apparent overload or over extension (of the crane). One or the other. That’s the two things that would make it come down.”
The crane fell across an elevated roadway, blocking it completely, and extended onto a roadway below, striking a car driven by Kee Teck Goh, 35, of Beverly Hills, who died.
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