Boston Fire Catastrophic Ladder Failure/Crane Recovery 

So the crane guy that climbed up to place the sling... How does he walk properly with those massive brass balls that he obviously has? Bloody amazing!

Stumbled on this footage again, 4 years later. No more Pierce rigs for Boston lol.

Aerial Ladder and Tower Ladders are cantilevered structures, and are NEVER supposed to make contact with a building. In my opinion, this incident was caused by either hydraulic fluid system failure, or, I hate to say it, firefighter error.

The department where i live had the same thing happen to there Pierce 100' rear mount platform but it was from operator error during a drill

Just by looking at it, I'd say it happened because someone lowered the end down onto the roof. There's really no other way that 2 sections would pop up like that.

Nice work! I thought about making the drive for this but didn't.

Wow great catch on getting this footage . That crane company is no joke , he made it look like he does this twice a week ! 👍

Nice work , tough place todo it in .

we have a 06 same pierce tower ladder and no issues i bet its driver error probably resting it on the building

My armchair investigator's eye sees that the lower section of the ladder is at a low angle, pointing to the middle of the building, while the telescopic sections are are at progressively steeper angles up to the roof, suggesting that either the hydraulic rams holding the ladder up failed or the ladder was lowered while the tip of the ladder was obstructed by the building, lifting the telescopic sections out of their tracks. Lucky they didn't lift out completely and slide all the way down.

what are the odds of this happening

FNG got his fall protect hooked on the boom lever. That ladder did not fail. He raised it as the crane operator was hoisting, and lowered it as they went to the ground.

Boston got a new tower unit days after, 2018 EOne replacing old Tower ladder 3

What does the "all out working" mean? Only took 4 hours? Gee, impressive.

They said peirce is one the best and strongest long lasting truck manufactured. So why did passaic tower ladder did the exact same thing at a fire last year ?

heard it live as it happenend on the scanner

Got er down, now get er back to station! Watch those turns!

I was at Pierce a few years ago and saw a ladder truck from BFD that had broken. It was BFD operator error on that one. This one looks like the same type of incident. Tower came down while bucket was on the roof. Why? We'll see.

I have seen the waterway bind and snap but never the ladder

Just think about the firefighter in the basket when the ladder separated. At least it was leaning against the building and didn't fold over.

Unless there was some sort of of way to manually unextend the ladder portion of it, what they did have to do after the video ended, take the sections apart??????

Truck was due to be retired and sold in a few weeks. I guess it just couldn't make it

Very unusual failure. I can see the slightest damage on the building.

The question I have is...why did they not remove power from the tower ladder's boom? Or is it in a protected covering? I ask this because of pinch point training I have had at a lumber mill.

So do they offload all their equipment right there and how bad was that fire?

Manufacturing error? Demonracer had one of these happen to him.

Awesome footage! Normally ladders don't fail like that!

Wow how?

I’ve seen NYC using the ladder trucks to break out windows too which I imagine would cause something like this.

When they swung the ladder after the crane was attached, did the truck and crane have to coordinate the movement, or was it all crane and the pivot point on the truck was free to rotate?

Wow!

Must be a Pierce!

What company built it?

I was on scene where it happened to one of our leaders. Our operator who was a bit on the bigger side manage by lining towards move the control in the down position. Massive dent in the building roof and wall and the leader was looking exactly like that. Ohh ohh

maintenance

make sure ur spares r working properly b4 u put them in service.some1 couldve died bcause of this epic failure at a fire

Is this old TL17 or TL2?

Am inyhe only one who noticed he did that without weights and off the whip line..

Holy crap! No serious injuries to any Firefighters or anybody else tho??? 😦

Time to buy a new tower, I guess.

thats not good

10:28 the cameraman jumps lol

Mack/Baker/Thibault were the best!

Was this a hydraulic problem or a human mistake? A hydraulic valve or hose could easily cause this.

pierce. that says it all.

Cut it off and scrap the rig. There is NO WAY that it can be repaired AND pass the ladder test, without an astronomical amount of cash...

Time for a new ladder truck

AS A BALTIMORE CITY FIRE FIGHTER THAT WAS OPERATOR ERROR HE CAME DOWN ON THE STRUCTURE

Tower ladders are extremely heavy beasts and after working with a couple in the area I can find no reason to have one. They are HEAVY, OVERBUILT, EXCESSIVELY LONG, EXCESSIVE REAR OVERHANG, and SHORT in terms of a good working length. Without being on the fireground and directly involved in the investigation, just looking at the wreckage it appears to be Inattention to the proper setting of the aerial device by the operator. Probably trying to firmly test the structure while lowering the ladder assembly. And the ladder did what ladders do when the tip is set but the rest of the ladder continues down, it started to disassemble itself. Now, from a fire mechanics point of view, if the ff had stopped immediately when the disassembly began and reversed to begin lifting the ladder , the situation would not be the state it is. Technically, the main section of the ladder should be able to lift and cautiously gather the ladder sections back in place more or less. Retracting the aerial could be a challenge BUT the ladder could be carefully swung away and lowered to the ground for intentional disassembly and return to the shops. Most ff's dont realise that the ladder sections are raised and lowered by a wire rope system that the spool which does the raising/lowering is what they take their first step over climbing the ladder. There are no tracks or clips to hold the sections down. EXCEPT on some of the Tower Ladders, its the nature of the beasts manufacturing. This is a Pierce unit and isnt built to severe use as others are..

Watch at x2 speed then it actually looks like something is happening

Hey chief I think I broke the ladder!!!!!!!!LOL

Alter die können ja gar nix.... Haben die alle Geburtstag oder warum haben die alle die Hände an der Kerze....

typical Boston

The

r/catastrophic failiure

Catastrophic ?? Really ? A volcano erupting on 2mil. people is catastrophic not a broken ladder .

typical pierce gahbage.

I have to say this but BFD has a horrible maintenance record mostly due to not having enough trained mechanics on staff to maintain their equipment. A few years back a ladder truck had break failure and cost a leutenant his life. And that's not the first incident they have had either. The city council repeatedly screwed the BFD with budget cuts and constant contract BS negotiations. I used to see their apparatus being serviced at a commercial mechanics shop on Comm ave and would often wonder when was the last time that truck was in for even basic maintenance. Felt bad for the FF's forced to rely on equipment that might fail them. That's not the FF'S fault, that's the division captains and fire chiefs responsibility, and the cities.

The crane employee that climbed the ladder should have had a safety harness on and a two-way radio. Fire chief should not have allowed such stupidity.

If they stayed off the roofs and Only used them when Really needed, maybe they wouldn't break.

Made in the usa

Made in china

I CALL BULLSHIT....these machines are maintained daily...THIS IS JUST TO GET A NEW RIG.... fricken pathetic they would do something like this

Maybe if your president wasnt so smart as to avoid paying his taxes, your life saving equipment would work