Factors that affect safety of tower crane installation/dismantling in construction industry

• Fatal accident cases related to tower cranes in Korea since 2001 to 2011 were analysed.
• Accidents during installation/dismantling of tower crane consist of 68.4% of all fatal accidents.
• FGIs identified 31 factors that affect safety of tower crane installation/dismantling.
• Workers’ competency, roles of stakeholders, maintenance and other issues were discussed.

Construction of high-rise buildings, large-scale apartment blocks, or construction in urban areas (especially busy downtowns) demands increasingly greater use of tower cranes. Therefore, the installation and dismantling of tower cranes on construction sites is an inevitable task, but also one of the most dangerous in the construction industry. Accidents during installation (including assembling and climbing) or dismantling of tower cranes incur the loss of workers’ lives as well as delays in construction schedules and/or damage to buildings under construction. The aim of this paper is to investigate factors that contribute to accidents during tower crane installation/dismantling in Korea. Accident analysis and focus group interviews (FGIs) were conducted with people involved in crane work. A total of 38 fatal accident cases involving tower cranes occurred between 2001 and 2011. Accidents occurring during installation/dismantling of tower cranes accounted for 68.4% of all fatal accidents. Accident analysis identified “Not following work procedures” as one of the main causes of these accidents, followed by “unsafe acts of workers.” The FGIs investigation revealed the following factors that adversely affected the safety of the tower crane installation/dismantling: competence of the workers; roles of stakeholders such as principal contractors in the tasks; deterioration of tower crane components; and working conditions for conducting the tasks. These results may provide regulators as well as practitioners with insights for improving the safety of tower crane installation/dismantling.