Montreal Bronto Failure...............

[Weruj1]

this happened during routine maintenance luckily......pretty dramatic pics........here is the link to the story.
http://www.incendie.com/Reportages/200406/02be/

[sven73]

Gee, pretty quiet from the E-1 contingent. What, no demands for an investigation, or 30 different theories on what happened based on photos?

[HFDCLanger]

Brontos are not E-Ones - they are owned by the same company, built on the same chassis, and finshed at the same facilities, but that's about where the similarities end.

I guess Federal Signal wanted to balance out their reputation for aerials when they acquired Bronto - they had to drag down their standard somehow.

Had E-One aerials not already had the reputation they did, FRG could have pulled a Pierce: buy out another manufacturer, merge the aerial lines and market them under the same name, then blame it on the now-defunct company when an aerial fails. That tactic seems to have worked pretty well for them


Sorry about that - sven73 just set it up too well, so I decided to play his game.

[HFDCLanger]

Nice pictures, by the way.

[Resq14]

Originally posted by HFDCLanger
Brontos are not E-Ones - they are owned by the same company, built on the same chassis, and finshed at the same facilities, but that's about where the similarities end.

I guess Federal Signal wanted to balance out their reputation for aerials when they acquired Bronto - they had to drag down their standard somehow.

Had E-One aerials not already had the reputation they did, FRG could have pulled a Pierce: buy out another manufacturer, merge the aerial lines and market them under the same name, then blame it on the now-defunct company when an aerial fails. That tactic seems to have worked pretty well for them

Hahahaha, yup.

Like I always say in these, I'm glad no one was hurt.

Federal Signal does own Bronto (part of its Fire Rescue Group, along with E-One, Saulsbury, etc). I don't think there is any E-One engineering in a Bronto... I'm sure Station2 will correct me if I'm wrong. Something caused the boom to fail. It was a Bronto boom, not an E-One ladder.

It will be very interesting to see what caused this, because there are a lot of these in service--especially in non-USA departments.

[Bones42]

Seeing as it's bent over backwards....I'm betting on operator malfunction. Glad no one was hurt.

[k1500chevy97]

[aerialguy1]

To all the armchair Quarterbacks out there here are my comments from someone with knowledge about the Bronto's in Montreal. This is one of 14 that were sold to SPIM between 1986-1988 and these 27M (92 ft.) 3 boom articulating devices have done the majority of fire suppression work in Montreal for a number of years and overall have performed very well for their application requirements in many major fire situations.

The booms were shipped from Finland to Anderson Engineering Ltd. in Langley B.C. where they were installed on the Freightliner chassis.
They were sold by OY Bronto Skylift Ltd. before Bronto was bought by Federal Signal.

From the photos it appears to me that there is perhaps an issue of metal fatigue (failure) in the lower or main boom based on the position and how it failed. I'm sure that Bronto's engineers will be in Montreal by know and hopefully the company (Bronto/Federal Signal/E One) will step up and explain the failure.

Lets wait and see what they have to say and there is NO WAY it would be Operator Error...

KEEP SAFE.

[firenresq77]

I see the story is on the front page of FH.com HERE

[SCOOBY14B]

http://www.incendie.com/Reportages/200406/02be/

[Weruj1]

do you two not read ? I got the link up there when I started the thread ........

[SCOOBY14B]

weruj...sorry...please forgive me...sooo sorry. I thought yours was a link to one picture only.

Thanks for the very polite notification.

[firenresq77]

Originally posted by Weruj1
do you two not read ? I got the link up there when I started the thread ........

And if you read the article from the link I posted, you would see it is a different article, with more information........

[allineedisu]

Wasn't these Bronto's built by some company and put on various truck chassis? I remember some where back where Pierce was building these and stopped for whatever reason. I actualy saw one on a Pierce chassis and didn't care for it then. I am guessing that they didn't like them or that they might not be as good as there where suppose to be. Somehow Emergency One got the deal on them and started putting them on there chassis. From what the pictures show in this story, the Freightliners look older.

I am guessing that fatgiue or operators error is to blame. Didn't it say the the shop was testing them or operating the piece? Maybe they took it pass the safety reuirement.

Maybe some day we will know the rest of the story!!



Yelling at someone because they put a link to a article really wasn't nice!

[Fire304]

Originally posted by sven73
Gee, pretty quiet from the E-1 contingent.

Ahh, its not an E-One.

What, no demands for an investigation, or 30 different theories on what happened based on photos?

Ok, the arm obviously was at full extension and the failure was actually on the top of the box section of the boom. My guess is that the operator extened too quickly maybe combined with a windy day and the boom failed due to fatuige and exceeding working limits.

[CAPN22]

Truck was assembled by Anderson Engineering in BC. now out of business. They were the Bronto distributor in Canada until Federal Signal purchased the Bronto line and added it to the Fire Rescue Group of Companies.

About the failure, who knows, damage is obvious and I am sure that when the result is known it will be published,

Now some of you are not aware of Montreals history, do a search and I think you will find one the most militant Unions around. During Disputes they have vandilized the trucks, Spray painted all over the trucks and tires, A few years back during a labor dispute they chose to test all the hose by laying it out for miles around downtown Montreal.. Loose couplings and such sprayed water all over and effectivly shut down the core. There were even rumors that members punched holes in the hoses with picks.

It this a result of some of stunts pulled by over the years. I really don't know and I'm not saying it is.

I'm just glad no one was hurt in this.

[STATION2]

I guess I am from the E-One contingent previously mentioned. LOL. Just like the failure of the Sky Arm in North Carolina, this was a failure of a device made by ANOTHER company prior to being bought by the current owner. Unlike the the Pierce issue, this was not on an E-One chassis. This, unlike the Sky Arm incident, was mounted on a totally different chassis. As already mentioned, this was built by one company (Bronto) and finished by another company (Anderson) on a 3rd companies chassis (Freightliner). I am NOT trying to defend E-One as most would assume, the only common thread connecting E-One to this particular device, and the others built pre-buy out of Bronto, is that they are currently owned by E-One. They are not on an E-One chassis, has no E-One engineering on the device, has no oversight by E-One, has nothing E-One about them. Now if they were rigs with body work by Superior, I could see the connection, but they are not. Hell, its actually closer to being a Mercedes Benz issue than an E-One issue, LOL. This is fortunatly an incident that didn't cause injury or worse to fire fighters or civlians.

Something interesting, and already mentioned, is what was ongoing when the failure occured - Testing. Now, if I was E-One, Bronto, the Montreal Fire Department or anyone else with a vested interest in this incident, I would be wanting detailed reports of what the testing procedure was supposed to be and what it actually was. That can not be discounted here. And no I am not trying to cover E-One in a vail of protection. But it needs to be looked into. A neighboring department to my volunteer department recently had a 3rd party ladder testing company put their 2 year old 105' Pierce into power lines and cause in excess of $300,000.00 damage. This was all due to inattention of the testor who created a 96' Pierce aerial. Just some thoughts.

Stay low and move it in.

[firefish1488]

Larry (Station2)

I have to agree with you whole heartedly! Something is VERY fishy (LOL) here....Hmmmmm.... ****Poof**** Aaaaah, Geeez Chief, it flew right over backwards, all by itself!

These types of failures do not "normally" all of a sudden happen, without the Paul Harvey....and now, "the rest of the story". AND NO I will not defend E-One or smokescreen this for their protection. I am very familiar with the Bronto Skylift product and quite honestly, they became a whole lot better company after their acqusition by E-One and Federal Signal. In the days that these units were built by Anderson Engineering in Bristish Columbia mounted these devices and are now gone. Bronto was on the same financial path as Anderson, but were actually saved by E-One. In that era of Brontos there were poor electronics, interlocks that failed continually, trucks out of service more than they were in service, and huge issues within the company in Finland, etc. I worked in Puerto Rico for an extended time period and the PFD had two Anderson/Bronto/Freightliners that were in service for an average of 35 calendar days annually, because of constant electronic failures, with the aerials stuck in the air, stuck in the bed, could not rotate, on and on. I can say (from my own personal view only) the Bronto of today, is a reliable and sound product, with incredibly sophisticated engineering that NO U.S. aerial has. Do not be mislead for one second about Bronto, the Fin's have incredibly engineering capabilites, way beyond what we do in the U.S.! In contrast, Take a look at Nova Quintech that Pierce purchased.....OMG what a nightmare of a product and company! HUGE issues, yet somehow, Pierce puts their logo on it and ***POOF*** everything is fine and its now its the greatest thing since sliced bread! AMAZING! Can Pierce fix a questionable Nova Quintech product? Without a doubt, Yes. BUT, still they will be haunted by the previous questionable engineering and poor quality issues seen prior to acqusition. So in retrospect, I believe E-One did the same with Bronto after purchasig it. Funny thing is though, Bronto is far enough away from E-One here in the U.S., that Bronto has evaded being screwed up as E-One has managed to do with their own and the other Federal owned firetruck companies. The next question on the Bronto would be is; Does the design fit your operating conditions and can the manufacturer accomodate your specific finite design requests for the body design? If yes, great! If not, move on to the next guy.

I firmly believe you are right and we will hear more on this one, as articulating platforms just do not bend over backwards for no reason. Something VERY strange happened here.... I firmly believe in one thing in these situations.....go straight to the source. Call E-One's president and ask him what happened! Then call Montreal fire shops and ask what happened!

Stay safe and good fishing.

Fish

[Fire304]

Thank God there were no riders in the basket at the time of failure!

I was chatting with a friend of mine who's FD has a Pierce Snorkle and he told me that on smooth surfaces (a cobble stone street) you can build up enough momentum with the boom to cause the truck to slide on its jack pads (which may be the reason they were black turnouts hehe). If there are no delays built into the hydraulics and you go from full-speed elevate to full speed depress the loads on the base of the boom must be tremendous, especially right around the hydraulic ram pivot point. Also if you are going full-elevate and hit the mechanical limits the boom comes to a quick stop causing a whip lash in the aerial. My money is on one of these two methods of operation with a possible contributing factor of fatuige.

If you guys have not been to the Bronto web site I encourage you, they make an 88 meter (that's nearly 300') version of this beast. Some realy neat photos of euro apparatus making some really tight sets there.

Goto the Bront Gallery and select Pictures
http://www.bronto.fi/index.asp

Can your (insert aerial name here) make this set?

[ullrichk]

That pic kinda shoots the old park-out-of-the-collapse-zone theory in the *****, doesn't it?

Any idea on how long until an offical report is released?