Five Plunge to Death in Crane : 7 Others Injured as Basket Falls to Ship Deck in San Diego

Five civilian shipyard workers were killed and seven others injured when a crane-operated steel basket plunged nearly 30 feet onto the deck of a U.S. Navy ship early this morning.

The accident, the worst in the history of the National Steel & Shipbuilding Co., occurred just after midnight as workmen secured the combat support ship Sacramento, undergoing basic overhaul, to a pier after it had been moved from dry dock, according to Fred Hallett, the firm’s vice president.

The 175-foot crane was transferring the basket holding the 12 men from a berthing barge next to the ship to the dock when the basket came loose and fell about 30 feet to the ship’s third deck, Hallett said. After glancing off the third deck, the basket ultimately came to rest on the ship’s second deck, on top of at least one worker, according to eyewitnesses.

‘A Real Mess’

“It was a real mess with blood all around and guys sprawled everywhere--one of those sights you hope you never have to see,” said rigger John Farinsky, who had chatted with the victims as they climbed into the basket. “I was talking to them one minute and then as I turned around I heard this loud crash. When I looked in the air, all I saw was the crane with the wires hanging down, and I knew what had happened.”

One survivor, 37-year-old Ford Pulley, said that he “felt a tug on the line” just before the basket dropped to the ship’s deck.

“The next thing I knew, I was on the main deck of the Sacramento lying in a pool of blood,” Pulley said in an interview from the hospital, where he’s being treated for minor injuries. “There was no time to get scared or panic. It just happened so quickly.

Prophetic Conversation

“The real ironic thing about all this, is that roughly 15 minutes before the accident, a sailor on the Sacramento asked me if I had ever seen one of the baskets fall. I told him no, never. That’s really scary.”

Noting that the crane’s cable was intact after the accident, Hallett said that officials believe that either a failure of the crane’s brake--which locks the basket to the crane’s arm--or operator error was responsible for the basket being dropped.

NASSCO, the Navy and the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration are investigating the accident. A preliminary determination of the cause of the accident is not expected for at least several days, Hallett said.

The so-called “personnel basket” involved in the accident is about 7-by-10 feet in size, with 3-foot-high sides, Hallett said. The basket has a capacity of about 15 people, “so 12 was a very normal load,” he added.

Sailors Aid Injured

After picking up the 12 men in the basket, the crane operator lifted it in the air and had begun to swing it about 100 feet over the Sacramento to the pier, Hallett explained. However, when the basket was roughly halfway over the ship, it dropped from the crane to the ship’s deck.

Navy personnel immediately began administering first aid to the victims. “If it hadn’t been for that, I think a couple more might be dead,” Farinsky said.

Four men were declared dead at the scene, and a fifth died later at a local hospital, according to a spokesman for the San Diego County coroner’s office. Two of the seven injured men were listed in critical condition early today, while the injuries to the five others were not considered life-threatening, Hallett said.

NASSCO, which builds and repairs commercial and military ships, employs about 2,300 workers at the shipyard.