Winds were gusting near and above the legal city limit of 30 mph around the time of the fatal crane accident in Queens Tuesday afternoon — but officials refused to blame the tragedy on the weather.
The city is still investigating whether strong winds caused a wire to snap and send a steel beam crashing on a 60-foot crane at the Briarwood residential building site — killing two construction workers.
“It was a 6,500-pound beam going up four stories. I would say the wind would not have been a major factor on that,” said the Department of Building’s Commissioner Rick Chandler. “I don’t want to eliminate it completely. We’ll check.”
Chandler did admit it was “windy” Tuesday, but said investigators are currently thinking the deadly incident originated from a malfunction with the rigging rope used to transport the beam.
Meteorologists at Accuweather confirmed that sustained winds reached 25 mph at both LaGuardia and JFK airports, which are five miles from the crash site, and gusted up to 40 mph at the time of the crash.
City regulations dating back to 1968 ban the use of all cranes when winds — sustained or gusts — are higher than 30 mph.
Construction site operators are permitted to use personal anemometers, a handheld instrument that measures wind speeds, or rely on the most recent hourly forecast provided by the National Weather Service when analyzing work conditions.
“The onus is on the operator to make the determination on how they want to proceed and when it is time to shut down,” Department of Buildings spokesman Alexander Schnell said.
It is unclear whether this construction crew had tested the winds or checked local weather reports.
Commissioner Chandler ordered a series of new regulations related to larger crawler cranes in March following a different deadly incident in Manhattan.
A 15-story crane came crashing down onto Church Street in February, killing one person and injuring three others, as it was being lowered because winds topped 20 mph.
The accident prompted the city to drop the maximum wind-speed allowance for crawler cranes down to 20 mph — 10 mph less than the building code previously required.
