Snapped a load line cable at 180 feet, the sound was wild

Tuesday over in Newark, I was lifting a big HVAC unit onto a rooftop when the load line let go right at the drum. The cable snapped with a crack like a gunshot, and the hook dropped maybe 15 feet before the brake caught it. The unit swung hard and smacked the parapet, chipped a brick but nobody got hurt. My rigger and I stood there quiet for a minute, then he just said "well, that's a new one for the logbook." Has anyone else had a line snap like that on a cold morning, or was it just my bad luck with this old Grove RT?

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1 Comment

margaret_nelson9d ago

Hold on there. That cable snapping at the drum isnt just bad luck with an old Grove, that sounds like a maintenance and inspection failure more than a cold morning thing. Cold weather can make wire rope stiff and it can hide damage, but a load line snapping that clean at the drum usually means there was already a broken wire or a kink that someone missed. We run our cranes all winter here, and Ive never had a load line let go without a warning sign in the weekly checks. That hook dropping 15 feet before the brake grabbed it, that tells me the brake was doing its job, but the real problem was the line itself. You need to pull that cable off the drum and inspect every foot of it, and check your maintenance logs on that Grove, because that close call was the machine telling you something you should have caught earlier. Glad nobody got hurt, but that logbook entry should have a lot more detail than just "new one.