The distinctive tube-shaped roof of the EUR700m new terminal at Paris’s main airport, Roissy-Charles de Gaulle, collapsed in May 2004, barely a year after it opened in April 2003, killing four people, and injuring three others.
After a 10-month analysis, airport authority ADP decided the safest solution would be to raze the entire structure to its floor.
French crane rental firm Mediaco bid for, and won, the EUR30m international contract to do the job, with Genier-Deforge, a daughter company of French construction contractor Bouygues.
Mediaco managing director Christian-Jacques Vernazza explains the job was not demolition, but deconstruction, since it needed to be carried out while the airport was in use. That meant dust and noise needed to be kept down. Mediaco spent six months planning the job.
The terminal was a single concrete tube, 650m (2,100 ft) long, 31m (100 ft) wide, and 35,000t in weight, with 3,000t of steelwork. The structure needed to be taken down in eight months.
First, subcontractor Mills filled the terminal with scaffolding to provide access and support to the roof sections. Gangways covered the roof of the terminal. Storage spaces under the terminal floor were protected from rain with a waterproof lining. Then Mediaco and Genier-Deforge began a seven-month sweep from one end of the terminal to the other.
Genier-Deforge diamond-cut the terminal into a total of 146 horseshoe-shaped sections, each of which weighed 240t. Genier-Deforge then cut each of the slices into two 100t side-sections and a 40t ceiling section. Workers drilled each piece of concrete, and screwed in steel plates with lifting lugs. Mediaco’s 800t capacity Demag CC 2800 rigged with superlift backmast lifted the concrete sections down to the ground to be broken up. The time it took to complete the cutting limited the crane to three lifts a day.
The big crawler also lifted out 150t horizontal concrete support beams. Mediaco supplied two 700t capacity Demag AC 700s to lift side sections to speed up work, and three other small cranes, and aerial work platforms, for site work. In a total workforce of 180, Mediaco supplied 17 staff, including two works managers and a worksite director.
By coincidence, it was Mediaco who supplied a Demag CC 4200 crawler crane to 50:50 joint-venture company Mammoet Fostrans to build the terminal in the first place in 2000-2003. The JV was dissolved in July 2006, when Mediaco formed a wholly-owned heavy lift division called Mediaco Maxilift.
Mediaco divisions Mediaco Maxilift and Mediaco Global Services started work on the Charles de Gaulle terminal in September 2006, and finished in March 2007, a month early.
Roof sections were laid down on the deck to be broken up Roof sections were laid down on the deck to be broken up A panoramic view of the deconstruction job A panoramic view of the deconstruction job Heavy scaffolding supported the roof Heavy scaffolding supported the roof The deconstruction went on around live runways The deconstruction went on around live runways The big crawler hooks another roof section The big crawler hooks another roof section
