A newly built 1,000t Zoomlion crawler crane collapsed on October 10 2011 at a plant in Gansu owned by a Sinovel subsidiary. The accident has been well publicised. After the accident, the local government led by the Jiuquan, the State Administration of Quality Supervision and Administration of State Security and other authorities organized an investigation team, to conduct a thorough investigation on the cause of the accident. On December 16 2011, the team presented the results of its investigation.
According to a presentation of the investigation released at a press conference held by Jiuquan city government, the direct cause of the accident was that the crane was operated with the crawler base inclined beyond the value specified by the manufacturer. When the crane slewed, the peak of rotary inertia loads exceeded the structural capacity of the crane, leading it to tip.
The survey results appear to indicate no design and quality defects for Zoomlion’s 1000t crawler crane. With the announcement of final results, Zoomlion said in a statement: “Zoomlion will go all out to deal with the aftermath of the accident, and also hopes that the whole industry can learn a lesson from it.”
