The attached are from an incident we had a couple of days ago
and may help others. The company use large yard lift trucks to
load / unload containers.
One of our operators parked his near the building, parked it
correctly though missed a key part; he did not park with rear
wheels cut uphill.
Mechanical failure struck as the parking brake actuator bearing
went out and created slack on the cable. CC video was clear in
that no one was around, the lift jerked backward a few inches
(probably when it broke), sat in that spot for several minutes
before it finally gave way to gravity.
It took out someone's SUV before slamming into some wrapped
containers, moving them some 14 inches.
One of the actuator pictures show how the attaching bolt tried
to hang on as it felt some pressure though more was lost than
remained. The other shows the bearing failure on right side of
the mechanics inside the actuator.
While our daily pre-shift inspection process is good, we are
improving this to include looking in this part and not just
setting the brake and testing, plus we will be requiring from
the operators to turn their rear wheels upward whenever parked
along with setting a chock on the downhill side under a wheel.
The grade is no more than 2% though is enough for gravity to
wreak havoc when a lift is free from the bonds of brakes!
Thank God no one was injured.
