Straddle Carrier Turnover: With Fatal Results [Port Newark, New Jersey – 13 July 2022]

Posted by admin on Jul 13, 2022 in Bulletins

With great regret, as-yet unconfirmed reports coming to Blueoceana Company have revealed that an early morning straddle carrier turnover accident occurred at Port Newark Container Terminal (PNCT), Newark, New Jersey and that the operator of the machine experienced fatal injuries as a consequence.

We’re actively seeking additional details, and when further information becomes available it will appear within this post as an UPDATE.

We note, with sad irony and with an abiding respect for the genuine safety efforts that management and labor at this particular marine terminal have exhibited, that PNCT and its staff had recently concluded a very busy June 2022 without a lost-time accident. A remarkable achievement, which is totally incompatible with today’s very sad event.

UPDATE: 13 July; 4:30 PM  – Somewhere between midnight and 1:00 AM today, an ILA longshoreman was operating Straddle Carrier 142 on the dock at PNCT (Newark, New Jersey). He had just picked up an MT 40′ container and was moving in his lane; heading towards the container yard’s MT stacks. He was traveling with the box fairly low; with the machine in a relatively stable position.

We’re told the CCTV video shows the operator engaging in a movement to take it out of the lane, whereupon it becomes unstable and turns over. The machine landed with the operator’s cab side down, slamming into the paved surface of the apron. Speed doesn’t appear to be an issue, but we’ll have to wait on that analysis.

Surviving an impact like that is tough, but this longshoreman’s survival was made even tougher (perhaps impossible), in that he had not engaged his seat belt. A very well liked guy; a proud ex-marine; a doting father and life partner; a man with rising seniority and a great work ethic….. all gone; for what reason?

We’ll miss “Popeye” and those of us who knew him will greatly lament his passing.