Smeal Waterway

[greghughes]

We were out training with our 75' Smeal Quint. The ladder was fully extended and the waterway was in the rescue position. We slowly started to flow water out of the monitor when one of the members yelled look out. The waterway was in flight. The waterway came down across powerlines taking a telephone pole down and breaking it into three pieces. I was wondering weather anyone else has had this happen to them.

[aerialguy1]

I would look at ensuring they actually had the aerial waterway in fact "locked" in the Rescue mode? This can't happen if the waterway is locked in the proper position of either Water Tower or Rescue mode.

I've seen a couple of FD's who in the course of a practice had moved the positioning T handle and then they decided to do a watertower evolution and "forgot" the ensure that it was locked in the water tower mode and oh yes it extends out real fast... This is strictly an operational error in my opinion and nothing to do with the Smeal.