light on crane

[Sally Eva]

If the light is not on, try phoning 101 and telling the police.

Alternatively try the civil aviation authority. They control helicopter routing and could be expected to care whether cranes are lit or not

The Battersea crash is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vauxhall_helicopter_crash

Two people died

[paulu1973]

Helicopters aren't allowed to fly lower than 150m near structures. Also in the time I've lived near jarvis road/Melbourne Grove, helicopters don't fly this close to the ground. Even with the establishment of the heliport at King, helicopters don't fly that low or use that flight path. Secondly the reference to battersea is obsolete as you are talking about a crane in excess of 60 floors vs the four floors at the building site

[rendelharris]

paulu1973 Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Helicopters aren't allowed to fly lower than 150m

> near structures. Also in the time I've lived near

> jarvis road/Melbourne Grove, helicopters don't fly

> this close to the ground. Even with the

> establishment of the heliport at King, helicopters

> don't fly that low or use that flight path.

> Secondly the reference to battersea is obsolete as

> you are talking about a crane in excess of 60

> floors vs the four floors at the building site

With respect, I think you're somewhat missing the point; lighting isn't just there for when everyone's following regulations, it's there for when mistakes are made. Had the Vauxhall pilot not made a catastrophic error, he wouldn't have flown into the building. I don't know the height of the King's helipad but given that it's atop a nine storey block I'd guess no more than fifty or sixty metres, so at some point the pilots are going to be dropping well below 150m and I've certainly seen the police helicopter flying below that deck - in bad weather, with instrument failure or pilot error, lights on surrounding structures could be vital for preventing a tragedy. In the final analysis, if it's unnecessary to have a light on the crane in question why was one put there in the first place? I feel residents have every right to raise their concerns.

ETA Just for interest [sic!] just looked up the regulations and "the 500 foot rule does not apply to police helicopters."

[ianr]

If the whole thing is less than 150m in height and more than 6km from an aerodrome or airfield it doesn't seem to require any light as a matter of regulation. The single red light is a CAA recommendation of what they think is judicious for a crane up to 90m tall, https://publicapps.caa.co.uk/docs/33/CAP%201096%20In%20Focus%20-%20Crane%20Ops.pdf, and Kier and the crane suppliers seem to concur. If the thing's less than 300 feet in height - which is quite possible, given that the jib length seems to be 45m - it doesn't even have to be reported to the CAA to be included in a Notice To Airmen. The Vauxhall crane had a tower that was 563 feet tall, and the jib was raised to a total height of 723 feet at the time of the accident, according to the AAIB accident report. https://www.gov.uk/aaib-reports/aar-3-2014-g-crst-16-january-2013

The following is from the Lambeth approval of the planning application for the helipad:

"10.5 Helicopters would approach and depart from the hospital in a westerly and easterly

direction on the same flight paths that existing helicopters take to/from Ruskin Park.

...

The CAA will have the final ?sign off? prior to the helipad becoming operational.

Ruskin Wing is on the existing flight path helicopters use to land in Ruskin Park and

the applicant has confirmed that the flight paths would not change only the landing

zone. Therefore the helicopter route is already identified and operational"

https://moderngov.lambeth.gov.uk/documents/s61618/

Don't the signs in East Dulwich Road have a contact phone number? With whom, I'm not sure.

Anyway, it seems to be on again tonight.

[bels123]

The site manager got back to me very promptly and resolved it today - the mains power had tripped, going to investigate further on Tuesday and reissue the newsletter with correct out of hours emergency contact details.

[sillywoman]

A newsletter? Interesting .... don't recall having seen one of those before, but well done bels123 for taking action. It was the mains power before wasn't it? Don't they have a night watchman on site who's keeping an eye on this sort of thing to make sure it doesn't happen, or that appropriate action is taken when it does?