With three recent crane incidents, this week’s Buildsafe UAE Safety Alert 239 recommended that employees must not stand in the exclusion zone, construction companies must ensure that the safety load indicator (SLI) is retained in cranes and conduct periodical checks to ensure that operators switch on SLI after each installation.

It was revealed that two construction companies were fined after an industrial concrete pump hose on a construction site fatally struck a supervisor. An investigation into the accident showed that the risks involving the concrete pump were not fully assessed, the driver of the concrete truck was not properly trained and that workers were allowed to stand in the exclusion zone.

Buildsafe UAE said until the concrete begins to flow freely, there should be an exclusion zone with a diameter twice the length of the suspended hose. Entry must be restricted to this area.

In another incident, a mobile crane overturned due to the incorrect set up by the crane operator, who failed to fully extend the crane outriggers. The other contributing factors included the operator lacking a competence certificate, not calculating the safe lifting ratio and the dysfunctioning of the crane safe load indicator at the time of the incident. Meanwhile, a crane collapsed due to the operator downing the boom without advancing the crane. The operator also ignored the warning of the foreman.

Buildsafe UAE urged not to remove SLI from cranes and to conduct periodical checks on the operator switching on the SLI after each installation.

In another incident, a mobile crane tipped over though no injuries were sustained. The overconfidence of the operator, lack of strong supervision and the radius extension past the tipping zone led to the accident. The SLI had been activated but the operator had deliberately silenced it.

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