Marshall accident in Canada

[Vasconia]

Next year we get to a complete new generation. It can break the Vettel-RBR streak.

It could renew it, too. Don't forget Newey's the most successful designer for new regs. Of course it hinges on the engine, too...

That crossed my mind as well.

And no one can take for granted that Renault’s turbo will not be as good as other team’s turbo engines. So RB´s supremacy could continue the following years, something I hope it won’t happen.

[Vasconia]

Awful news, I am very sad for him and his family, all my respect for these people who take parte in the race only because they love Formula 1.

About the race, which is the less important thing right now, I can only say that Vettel reminds me Senna more and more each day, he has something special, something magic on Saturdays, and he is damn fast in the first laps, in this aspect he is superior and he knows how to build new victories using this supremacy.

Alonso did a good race in the second half but his pace during the weekend has not been that good and he is continualy failing on qualy, he has to clearly improve in this area if he wants to fight for the championship, if not Vettel will have his fourth crown in a row very soon.

[RubberSoul]

Mind that such a similar case can happen in, let's say, construction. It's not so much that this is really f1 specific.

I do think however that similar cases can be avoided in the future. Fit sensors in front of the crane vehicle and you can go a long way already.

Training the personel itself isn't going to avoid such situations. It was a very unlucky incident; he fell right into the blind spot of the crane operator. No amount of training will be able to overcome your blind spot. You need to have equipment to be able to do that.

F1 made enormous, huge efforts to increase the safety of racing, and they massively succeeded in that. I think percentage-wise, F1 has less deadly accidents then road traffic. They should learn out of this new situation to keep diminishing that very small fraction of mortal situations.

A simple device called a camera (in the crane) could have avoided the blind spot and the accident.

[bdr529]

A simple device called a camera (in the crane) could have avoided the blind spot and the accident.

this is why I said lets not jump to conclusions, I have a license to drive that type of fork lift and yes a camera would be a nice option, Its just not that simple to say that would have avoided this accident.
This has been a very serious topic at work to day and have spent a good part of the day so far going over our safety procedures regarding this type of accident with our HR department, I didn't see this happen I was sitting over at turn 8-9 and had no clue till last night, all I could show them is the photo posted back on page 22.
The first thing I see is the two marshals holding the rear end of the car are using tag lines that are far to short, and with the operator needing to keep the F1 car up so he can see where he is going, this puts the 2 works holding on very close to the wheels of the fork lift,
all I have is that photo to go on and I wouldn't say conclusively that's the reason, but I believe that it is one of the contributing factors to this accident

[stefan_]

(...) all I could show them is the photo posted back on page 22.
The first thing I see is the two marshals holding the rear end of the car are using tag lines that are far to short, and with the operator needing to keep the F1 car up so he can see where he is going, this puts the 2 works holding on very close to the wheels of the fork lift,
all I have is that photo to go on and I wouldn't say conclusively that's the reason, but I believe that it is one of the contributing factors to this accident

OK, so I'll post the middle piece of the puzzle to make the bigger picture clearer.

1) We are looking at the man close to the front right wheel of the tractor holding the Sauber's rear right wheel. You can see his radio hanging down close to his knee. Presumably he hits it and the radio falls down then he leans to grab it because he must communicate with the other marshalls in order to keep the car stedy (we have seen the cars wobbling like hell when they are hanging on those tractors - 'the f**k with those things, I never liked them)



2) The man trips or something, fells in front of the wheel and he is run over completely.


3) The tractor goes away and the man is left behind.

[bdr529]

Yes that's that the photo, it looks like the accident happens about another 20 feet further down the road,
I cant say why he drop his radio, I've drop my share of radios over the years, but from this shot I can see that he has his left arm almost full extended and the tag line is full taunt and he is only a foot or so from that front tire.

I also see by the workers feet that they seem to be jogging along side the load ( F1car) this is never a safe practice.
this may also have been a factor

As for the driver he has a clear view of the road directly in front of him, that's why he has lifted the load to that height so he can see, I can not understand why he ran over the worker with both tires, he should have realized that he was driving on a smooth service that something was very wrong right away

[spinmastermic]

The crane was moving too fast. The marshalls are clearly jogging in the pictures.

[mep]

I wonder if part of the mistakes is that the crane lifted the car way too high. There is no need to lift the car higher than something like half a meter or a meter. Having the lift lower would also move the car further away from the crane. Giving the man more time to avoid the tire when he falls and the driver the time to stop.

[bdr529]

I wonder if part of the mistakes is that the crane lifted the car way too high. There is no need to lift the car higher than something like half a meter or a meter. Having the lift lower would also move the car further away from the crane. Giving the man more time to avoid the tire when he falls and the driver the time to stop.

Your right you always want to keep the load close to the ground that's the safest way, he has chosen to keep it up in the air, I don't want to speculate but I assume he moved it this way so he could have a clear site line of the road ahead

Accidents with this outcome are the result of a series of mistakes and never just one.

[WhiteBlue]

It is a shitty way to loose ones life, that's for sure. It appears to me that there is a need for better practise or we can have a repeat of such an accident. I still think that the accident might not have happened if they had brought out the safety car. It puts great pressure on the marshals to clear the wreck quickly from a possible trajectory if there is no safety car. I really hope the FiA conducts an investigation and takes appropriate action. One of those is certainly one too many.

[fritticaldi]

I believe this kind of tractor-crane is inadequate. I think a fork-lift would be better. The fork-lift would effortlessly lift the car onto a truck avoiding this kind of danger.

[strad]

A simple device called a camera (in the crane) could have avoided the blind spot and the accident.

I hate to be in this position but...
One of the first things you are taught in my industry is, not to try to grab things. There are untold thousands of incidents every year because some drops something in or around moving equipment and their first thought is to grab or save whatever,,radio,,camera, things,,a hard hat and they wind up losing limbs or life. It's kinda like when people have the impulse to grab a knife that falls off the counter.
I am very sorry for his friends and family, but he committed a fatal mistake, If only he'd said to hell with the damn radio.

[bdr529]

the marshal had cleared the car from the tire barrier and the raced had finished, this seems to have happened after the race when they were returning the car to the pits. I don't see why they were rushing
I believe they are the best machine to do the job, there able to drive into sand traps with out getting stuck were as a flatbed with a crane might, they have 4 wheel steering if needed, the machine can tilt over to the left or right to off set an slope that it may be on,
they can be used to lift cars straight up off of other cars, and guardrails by the roll hoop, this is something that you wouldn't be able to do with forks. and some cars are just to damaged to be picked up any other way

[Websta]

I am no expert in protocol regarding heavy machinery, but it seems painfully obvious that the crane should not be travelling so fast as if someone were to fall, the crane operator would have very little time to avoid an accident (as was the case unfortunately). This doesn't seem like a freak accident at all, but rather an accident waiting to happen.

I've never liked these small mobile cranes being used to transport the dangling cars either. Under race conditions when time and space is a factor, their use is justified (over a short distance). But when the race has been stopped, the cars should be loaded onto a flat-bed truck. The mobile crane/forklift things should really only be used to transport the cars off the racetrack.

Another thing that may have played a role; the crane operator was most likely a professional (I am assuming) who has experience working with similarly experienced workers and not volunteers. Perhaps the crane operator had too much trust in the inexperienced volunteers' situational awareness and expertise, and was operating at too fast a pace.

[RubberSoul]

It appears that this was not an accident caused by a blind spot, like I first thought based on the descriptions. The series of mistakes started from the safety planning (I’m beginning to wonder if there was such a thing done at all ?). No one should have been so close to the crane when it was moving. If tag lines are needed for stabilizing the F1 car, then they should have been much longer. However, long tag lines might cause another type of accident if they get dropped under the wheels of the crane (by accident of course). So quite a bit more planning would be needed in order to make this procedure safe. The need for the workers to stabilize the F1 car should simply be eliminated for best safety. This procedure put four people in great danger.

Everyone in the situation seems to be focused on the F1 car, and no one is paying attention to the safety of the workers nearest the crane.

People can stumble without any particular reason, so just by avoiding grabbing something isn’t enough to ensure adequate safety, although it might have prevented the accident in this case.

I just read that in road design the perception-reaction time is taken to be 2.5 s and it was said that this time will accommodate 90% of the drivers. If the crane was moving with a speed of 2 m/s or 7.2 km/h, then in 2.5 s it moved 5 m, which might be considered the minimum safety distance here (actually it doesn’t include the maneuver time and the corresponding braking distance, which is however short with this speed, probably less than 0.5 m). If you are off the driving line of the crane then the minimum safety distance from the driving line should probably be on the order of your own length (with your hands included).