Crane tips over near LRT tunnel east entrance

CTV Ottawa: How to rescue a toppled crane Crews will work into tonight to right the toppled crane at the LRT tunnel project.

A large crane that was lowering a cement mixer into the LRT tunnel tipped over near the tunnel's east entrance on Wednesday morning.

The incident happened just after 9:30 a.m. near Waller Street and Laurier Avenue. No one was injured.

It's a sight you don't see very often and with reason.  Cranes aren't meant to topple over.

“Epic fail,” says one man walking by, “Epic fail is what I think.”

The Rideau Transit Group that is responsible for the Light Rail Transit or LRT prefers to call it an "incident."   But one that certainly caught it by surprise, too.  Around 9:30 this morning, a crawler crane was lifting a small concrete mixer down into the LRT tunnel.

“When we were doing the lift, we followed standard procedures,” says Peter Lauch, the technical director of the Rideau Transit Group, “We had the tool box meeting before, the loads were discussed with the operator, there were two spotters below and nowhere near the boom, making sure nobody was going from the tunnel out.”

But, Lauch says for whatever reason, the treads on the crane that help stabilize it weren't deployed.  The crane started to topple and the operator jumped out.

“He was shaken up as you can imagine,” says Lauch, “and he's sitting in the trailer, calming himself down.”

Sean McKenny, the President of the Ottawa and District Labour Council says Ottawa’s mayor and RTG need to acknowledge something is amiss with the LRT project.

“There were stabilizers that were supposed to be put on and weren't.  The question is how come?  It doesn't take much for an accident to occur,” says McKenny, “There's no such thing as “oops” in construction.  By that time, it's too late.”

Rideau Transit Group will be conducting an investigation but so too is the Ministry of Labour to try to understand what happened and why.

Workers at the LRT site wouldn't talk to media but off camera, some expressed concerns about going back into the tunnel.

This is almost the same spot on Waller as a sinkhole that occured in February of 2014.

And, this past November, three workers near the same spot were trapped in the tunnel after a piece of rebar fell off.

Meantime, the toppled crane has turned into an unlikely tourist attraction.

“I can't believe. It just fell over?” says Chris Julian, “What in the world?”

“Digging a hole under a city is an idiotic idea,” says nursing student Mark Templeton, “and they should have built an elevated train right down Laurier.  But hey, I'm a nursing student not an engineer.”

The Labor Council plans to meet with RTG and the head of transit services, John Manconi on Thursday to try to get some reassurances this kind of thing isn't going to happen again.

In February 2014, an eight-metre-wide sinkhole opened up when the road collapsed nearby. City study showed that collapse was likely due to LRT construction.

Overall, the provincial Ministry of Labour gave 150 work orders on the LRT project from September 2016 to March of this year.

More to come.