A California firm involved in disaster investigations such as the walkway collapse at the Kansas City Hyatt and the Oklahoma City bombing has been hired to help Toledo police probe the deadly I-280 bridge crane collapse. Five months after the crane's collapse, OSHA said the cause was most likely Fru-Con Construction Corp.'s failure to follow the crane manufacturer's instructions for securing the crane's legs during operation.
An investigation by The Blade found that Fru-Con received early warnings about not following the manufacturer's recommendations. The review of thousands of documents, along with interviews with dozens of people involved in the project, found that:
- The manufacturer sent four messages to Fru-Con in mid-2003 complaining the contractor wasn't safely anchoring the cranes during the first major test - including the memo that warned of a collapse.
- Fru-Con said it corrected the problems after the test. But bridge workers told investigators that the construction firm later reduced the number of anchoring bolts it used on the cranes, against manufacturer specifications.
- Fru-Con complained about crane design flaws, such as an inability to accommodate bridge curves. Yet Fru-Con did not share its concerns, or the concerns of manufacturer, with a special labor-management-government committee established to ensure worker safety. The crane collapsed while being set up over a future bridge curve.
- Government watchdog agencies never inspected the safety of the cranes, which had not been used previously in northwest Ohio. One former OSHA official said the agency's local office lacked the expertise.
