Crane Falls 19 Stories; 5 Killed, 21 Hurt in S.F.

A construction crane snapped in two and tumbled 19 stories Tuesday, sweeping three workers to their deaths and crushing two passers-by under a rain of debris during the morning rush hour in downtown San Francisco.

At least 21 people were injured, four seriously, including one 12-year-old boy hit in the head while waiting for a bus. Rescuers combed the debris for five construction workers believed missing, but they were later located unharmed.

The tumbling crane damaged and caused the evacuation of two nearby high-rise buildings, including the headquarters of the general contractor. The firm, Swinerton & Walberg Co., built a Los Angeles high-rise that partially collapsed during construction and killed three workers in 1985.

The crane operator was killed in the 8:15 a.m. accident, as were two other workers, a pedestrian and the driver of a school van who was on her way to pick up her daily contingent of handicapped students.

Three of the five dead were identified as Tay Holden, 39, of Berkeley, the van driver, Lonnie Boggess, 45, the crane operator, and iron worker Steve Tilton, both of Tacoma, Wash.

“There were notebooks strewn about and a child’s violin,” said the city Health Director Dr. David Werdegar, describing how steel trusswork folded the school van in half.

Steel beams in the building were bent like pipe cleaners, with loose beams and corrugated metal flooring dangling over the edge. Workers welded the material to the building to prevent it from falling.

Part of the crane punched through the sidewalk, severing a natural gas line and causing a small fire that was quickly extinguished. The crane debris came to rest on the trunk of a car parked in an underground garage.

Supervisor Angela Alioto, the city’s acting chief executive while Mayor Art Agnos is in New York promoting post-earthquake tourism, and San Francisco Fire Chief Fred Postel said the accident occurred when workers tried to raise the crane while the crane itself was lifting three large steel I-beams.

The 240-ton crane is capable of lifting 17 tons at a time. Representatives of Swinerton & Walberg said that at the time of the accident, the device was being jacked up from the 16th floor to allow workers to top off the 20-story Federal Home Loan Bank Board building.

“They were jumping the crane and they lost it,” said Ted Wright, business agent for Operating Engineers Union Local 3, which represented one of the workers killed in the accident.

One man who said he recently quit his construction job at the site, David Pounders, said workers were being pushed hard to make up for time lost when archeologists were called in to excavate a Gold Rush-era store unearthed on the site last year.

Johannes Geiken, father of one of the missing workers, told the Reuter news agency that his son told him employees at the construction site had feared for their safety because of recent accidents. He said his son told him welding-gas canisters fell last week from the 13th floor, breaking an electrician’s arm.

However, a shop steward for the Laborers Union shrugged off such talk.

“As far as I know,” he said, declining to give his name, “we were all one happy bunch.”

Swinerton & Walberg was the general contractor for the 1000 Wilshire Boulevard building in Los Angeles, where three workers were killed in a 1985 accident. Los Angeles City Atty. James K. Hahn filed criminal charges against the firm and a subcontractor in 1986, accusing them of violating the state Labor Code.

Swinerton & Walberg executive Don Leyman said the misdemeanor charges were dismissed in 1987 after the company agreed to hold a safety seminar for the construction industry and reimbursed Cal/OSHA $982.50 for the costs incurred in investigating the accident.

Joe Kirkbride of the U.S. Department of Labor said the Occupational Safety and Health Administration inspected the company 15 times between July, 1987, and May, 1989, citing it for five serious violations and four lesser infractions.

‘Relatively Clean’

“These aren’t earth-shattering events,” said Kirkbride, who characterized Swinerton & Walberg as a “relatively clean” construction company.

Rick Rice of Cal/OSHA said Swinerton & Walberg had a “clean history” at the San Francisco building site. He said there were no complaints and all permits were in order.

John Akins of the Washington state Department of Labor and Industries said the crane operator, Erection Co. of Kirkland, Wash., has a poor safety record in his state. He said it has been cited nine times in the last three years and was fined a total of $65,500 in 1988.

A Swinerton & Walberg representative said the crane was inspected after last month’s disastrous Northern California earthquake and declared safe.

Two eyewitnesses said the crane swayed before collapsing and throwing its boom into a nearby high-rise.

“I heard what sounded like an explosion, then ran to my window and saw the crane swinging from side to side,” said Angela Whitaker, a secretary at the nearby Bank of America headquarters.

“It must have swayed,” said Michael Bettinger, a lawyer whose 23rd-floor office less than a block away looks down on the construction site. “The boom catapulted across the street, hit that building and slid down.”

The boom slammed down atop the 22-story International Building, destroying the empty penthouse, then gouged another chunk out of the 11th and 12th floors before bouncing off a fourth-floor balcony and landing on a taxi and a private car locked in rush-hour traffic on California Street.

“I thought the whole building was going to collapse,” said Kimberlee Garfinkle, a legal secretary who was working on the 20th floor of the building when the crane struck.

A length of the crane supporting tower snapped off and fell toward Kearny Street, falling onto the school van and clipping the front of a commuter bus, after smashing in windows along the granite-clad 580 California building. The 22-story high-rise houses Swinerton & Walberg.

“I heard this sound--like metal breaking or metal bending--and felt this shaking,” said Carol Tamagni, who was working in that building at the time. “At first I thought it was another earthquake, but it was over so quickly.”

Wright, the union official, said he worries that the Federal Home Loan Bank Building under construction may have been seriously weakened by the accident. City officials said the building and the two hit by the falling crane would all be inspected before workers are re-admitted.

Times staff writers Victor F. Zonana and Norma Kaufman contributed to this story.