During a routine inspection in January, the city Department of Buildings never checked the cables of the crane that collapsed and killed a worker on the No. 7 line subway-extension project, documents show.
At least one of those cables snapped in the Tuesday-night disaster that killed 30-year-old worker Michael Simermeyer, whose family has hired a lawyer, and injured three of his fellow hard hats.
The crane-inspection form filled out by DOB inspector Patrick McGarrigle on Jan. 10 includes a section called “wire rope” that covers 16 different points on the cables of the collapsed crane, which was owned by Yonkers Contracting Co.
That entire section of the form is crossed out with a big “X,” and none of the 16 points is graded.
“Our engineers have found defects in the hoisting system of the crane that failed and, as a result, the maintenance and operation of the crane in the days and weeks prior to this tragic accident has become the focus of our investigation,” said Buildings Commissioner Robert LiMandri.
City officials said McGarrigle couldn’t lower the crane’s boom because it was in use on the subway project. A follow-up inspection had been scheduled for yesterday.
Instead, city and MTA officials spent the day dismantling the Manitowoc 4100 crane. Four sections will be taken to an MTA yard in Queens for further investigation, sources said.
City and federal rules require that crane operators check the crane and its cables every workday, and conduct a more rigorous inspection every month.
DOB officials would not say if they have Yonkers Contracting’s records of those inspections, and the company did not respond to a request for comment.
The last full inspection of the crane was last July, and it got “satisfactory” scores on all 16 cable inspection points.
The MTA said that after the tragedy, it re-inspected all cranes at its city projects and all passed.
Meanwhile, Yonkers Construction is contesting a $5,000 fine issued by federal workplace-safety probers for an incident at the World Trade Center last May involving a device used to “lift personnel.”
Older safety violations from a slew of government agencies put Yonkers on a City Hall “caution” list. The list is meant to warn agencies of a company’s safety problems, but being on the list did not bar Yonkers from getting government contracts.
Yonkers at present has three MTA contracts.