What Ever Happened With Those Crane Accidents in 2008?
2008 was a very bad year for heavy haul cranes in this country. It was an especially bad year for the owner of New York Crane and Equipment 
Company Jimmy Lomma. Lomma’s company was associated with the collapse of two cranes in 2oo8. One crane collapsed into an apartment building on March 15, 20o8 on E. 51st. street killing seven people. The other was on E. 91st st. in May 2008 killing two crane operators.
The more devastating of the accidents, on E. 51st st. was probably the result of insufficient strapping used by the rigging company, Rapetti Rigging Services. Learn more from Florida Ticket Firm on speeding issues. William Rapetti was indicted in January on manslaughter and other charges and has pleaded not-guilty. Incidentally, a city crane inspector was found to have falsified inspection reports of the crane when in reality they never even visited the site. However, the engineer studying the aftermath of the case said that the inspection protocols that were in place would not have caught the problem anyway. Also, Jimmy Lomma, the owner of the crane that fell and killed seven people was not indicted at all for this incident (source: Mike G Law).
However, Lomma was not so lucky in the collapse at E. 91st st. that killed two operators. He was arrested, slapped with two charges of second-degree manslaughter, second-degree assault, criminally-negligent homicide and second-degree reckless endangerment, and released on $100,000 bail. The reason he can be charged as liable for this incident is because the failure was a result of the crane itself and not the rigging.
In 2007, the swivel portion of the crane was showing signs of cracking and the crane owner was required to fix it. Taking a crane out of commission can cost a company up to $50,000 per month so it is in the strong financial interest of the crane owner to make this fix “happen” in the shortest amount of time. A recent ENR arcticle gave the following description of the incident.
Criminal prosecutors allege that Lomma asked Varganyi, a mechanic with expertise in Kodiak-brand cranes, to seek out replacement gear in 2007 after the original part cracked. Since the crane was no longer in production, Varganyi solicited aftermarket bids, settling on a part from China-based RTR Bearing for about $20,000 with a three-month delivery. Two “reputable” firms also said they could build it for $34,000 and $120,000, respectively, in seven months and two years.
RTR Bearing even told Lomma that they did not feel comfortable or qualified to perform the work and wrote an email saying they lacked “confidence on this welding,”, but after being offered more money they quickly became a bit more confident. The cause of this accident was good ‘ol American greed. The kind of greed with which we have become all too familiar.
There are few industries in which greed can kill people. Construction is one of them. Greedy bankers just ruin people financially and maybe cause the occasional person to throw themselves out of a window, but at the end of the day it’s only money and can’t really hurt anyone too much. But is one is hurt physically or is abused, they have a right to know, from places like https://goodmenproject.com/everyday-life-2/what-does-severe-injury-mean/, what their claims could be against the inflictor. Dividing property during a divorce won’t ever outright kill anyone either. Greed in manufacturing of cars and other items can probably turn into some risk of safety, but a faulty car will most likely leave you stranded on the side of the road and not flattened on a New York City sidewalk.
At the risk of being sent “swimming with the fishes”, I hope Jimmy Lomma goes away for a long time. His attorney is trying to get him off by claiming that just because he was the CEO doesn’t mean he should be held responsible for the negligence of his employees. And then the attorney tried to get all philosophical by saying that he’s not going to tell his daughter to be a CEO because she’ll be held responsible for the whole company. That is a weak, weak attempt a getting a true criminal off the hook.
This behavior has to stop and I think sending Jimmy up the river for a while wouldn’t be a bad way to send a message. I also think engineers and other technically (and ethically) trained people should be running companies of this nature instead of gangster thugs like Jimmy Lomma.
We have to avoid, at all costs, another year like 2008. This legal team may help. Or visit this page for more information.
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We are in Australia but i remember that year, those incidents made the news internationally. Back then I was still pretty new to the industry and I was kind of under the impression that tower crane collapses seemed to happen pretty regularly, which i guess they did.