![]() Two months later, another Lomma-owned tower crane collapsed in the city, killing the operator Donald Leo and a construction worker, Ramadan Kurtaj. Prosecutors blamed that accident on shoddy work by a crane rigger, but a jury acquitted him of manslaughter charges after his lawyer argued that bad welding and other factors were to blame. ![]() In March of 2008, one of the company’s cranes toppled on Manhattan’s east side, pulverizing buildings on the way down and fatally injuring seven people. Phone messages left with Van Duyne and New York Crane were not immediately returned Thursday. The same man was operating the crane that caught fire Wednesday, officials said. One of the two crane operators, whose license was suspended for eight months, was Chris Van Duyne. Later that year, a construction worker fell to his death while helping dismantle a crane owned by a different company. Nine people died, pushing the city to overhaul its process of inspecting and regulating tower cranes. Two of the city’s most disastrous crane collapses came over the span of two months in 2008, both involving cranes owned by New York Crane and Equipment Corp. Though no one was seriously hurt, the near catastrophe stirred memories of past crane collapses, including a series of incidents involving people connected to Wednesday’s accident. The flames burned through a cable holding the crane’s arm in place, sending the 180-foot-long boom crashing to the ground. The tower crane, owned by New York Crane and Equipment Corp., was hoisting concrete to the 36th story of a luxury high-rise when a fire broke out in the machine’s cab, officials said. NEW YORK (AP) - As authorities continue to investigate a crane collapse that rained thousands of pounds of steel debris onto a busy Manhattan thoroughfare Wednesday, the owner and operator of the failed crane are facing scrutiny over past safety failures.
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