Page 1 of 1

Overturned laden artic

Posted: Mon Apr 04, 2016 7:58 pm
by MGC
This incident took place in Dartford a couple of weeks ago. It seems the driver went a little too fast on the roundabout with a high load. The centrifugal force took over, ending with the vehicle overturned, busting the roof and tearing the side curtains. Some of the load did stay in at the front as it was trapped by the bent bulkhead and roof section that was still in place. It was a Saturday night and Richard, who normally drives the NRC, was not on call. On this occasion, it was piloted by one of our younger heavy recovery drivers who bought the vehicle up to the scene to assist the 1075.

The roundabout was a particularly busy one and the authorities didn't want to close the road for any longer than necessary. Due to the circumstances, we opted to place the 1075 at the front, spanning over the unit to both lift and catch the front of the trailer. The unit was only a 4x2 so this helped. The NRC was set up purely to keep the rear of the trailer following the front as the recovery took place. Most of the load was out, but some stacks of pallets lay on the sliding rails that are placed between the roof and the floor. The lifting took place and everything was going to plan. Unfortunately, the younger operator is still gaining experience in jobs of this nature. He continued with the lift but did not follow the trailer as its position changed when leaving the ground. This resulted in his strap slipping from under the small surface area it had to lift against. Fortunately, there wasn't much weight involved and the 1075 held onto the front. The strap was promptly re-positioned and the lift carried on :oops: He is a good boy and I am sure he will have learned from this small mishap.

Once righted, the major task of re-stacking approx. 550 pallets and reloading them onto the low loader etc began. This took several hours but it is not uncommon for the load to take considerably more time to clean up than the vehicle.

ImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImage