It matters not where the crane was positioned at close of business on Tuesday.
As has been said a number of times already, these jibs are designed to weathervane and as such, could feasibly move up to 180 degrees from its original position depending on windspeed, direction and time.
Correct. The descision to leave it at the most upright position would be so as not to strike anything should the crane be slewed due to wind. If they are locked into position the wind can topple a crane quite easily. Therefore leaving them unlocked allows the wind to rotate/slew them albeit very slowly in comparison with the speed of the wind hitting it. And this alleviates the potential of the wind effectively hitting a solid object and the risk of it blowing it over
Any damage to the trolley,top of the crane
this type of crane does not have a trolley (luffing crane). The cranes jib is raised or lowered to bring the lifting hook closer or move further away
Of course, if the crane driver had reported for duty on time and lowered the jib from the overnight parked vertical position to the normal working angle then we might not be discussing this.
This is an interesting point. According to people who have worked with this guy for years. He's never been late for work. Yet the day that something happens is the day he was late. A little too coincidental. A theory of mine as I have worked on building sites (as a lifting engineer, which at the time was involved in lifting operations for cranes) Is that maybe the fog had suspended crane ops for an hour to allow the fog to clear. Although they use radios to guide loads in and out. It's possible the site manager or the operator deemed it too risky to begin ops that morning. Also maybe taking into account the fact he was by a heliport and if he were to slew round in the fog he might make contact with anything flying low?
A little optimistic perhaps. But would be interesting to hear from the building site itself to see if all we are hearing is true.