Scaffold Collapse Recalls Previous Tractel Disaster

The failure of the window-washing machinery high atop Hearst Tower ended well Wednesday, when both workers on board were rescued by first responders. That wasn't the case in 2007, when a window washing accident sent two brothers on a 47-story free fall. The lone survivor filed suit against Tractel, one of the companies that maintained the scaffolding system. I-Team reporter Chris Glorioso reports on that incident and the possible connection to the latest scaffolding incident.

Scaffold Collapse Recalls Deadly '07 Accident: Two window washers plummeted 47 stories from a collapsed scaffolding on the Upper East Side in 2007. The two workers who were rescued from a collapsed scaffold atop the Hearst Tower Wednesday were not hurt, but a similar incident on the Upper East Side years earlier left one man dead and another with serious injuries. In 2007, two window washers, who were brothers - were working on scaffolding alongside 265 E. 66th St. when the structure plummeted 47 stories to the pavement.

The surviving brother, 43-year-old Alcides Moreno, filed a lawsuit against Tractel, the company that helped maintain the Upper East Side window washing scaffold that fell. After that accident, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued Tractel three serious citations for improper installation of parts that supported the platform’s load.

Marketing literature published online shows Tractel is also the company that provided a window washing scaffold that looks identical to the one that failed Wednesday alongside the Hearst building. Tractel "provided a unique façade maintenance unit” for the Hearst Headquarters, according to the product information. Tractel personnel had not returned the I-Team’s phone message seeking comment at the time of this article's publication.

It is not clear if Tractel was responsible for installing or maintaining the window-washing mechanism atop the Hearst Tower. The two workers who became stranded were technicians for Tractel Harness, according to first responders. The New York Department of Labor regulates window washing scaffolding mechanisms. In 2008, state labor regulators issued Tractel a notice of violation for failing to maintain the scaffold that collapsed at East 66th Street. The initial investigation found the hoist rope was attached to the scaffold with a faulty compression device.

Back in December 2007, when two “window washing” brothers—immigrants from Ecuador—plunged 47 stories from a luxury apartment building on the East Side, we marveled that one of them survived the fall that killed his brother instantly.  37-year-old Alcides Moreno was considered the “miracle  man” who was able to walk again, after grieving the death of his brother, Edgar. At the time, PIX 11 did a special report on the sometimes-fatal dangers of window washing, especially when the scaffold is faulty.  It turns out the high-tech scaffold being  used at the Hearst Tower on 57th Street, where two window washers were rescued Wednesday, was operated by the same, Long Island City company that was fined thousands of dollars in the fatal 2007 accident involving the Moreno brothers.  When contacted by PIX 11 Wednesday, a Tractel Company representative who answered the phone said, “In regards to the Hearst Building, we have no comment.  Please direct your questions to the Fire Department of New York.”

Man trapped in midtown Manhattan scaffold collapse says feared he'd be ‘crash-test dummy’ ‘You see everything happen in front of you. All I heard was the metal snapping,’ reveals survivor Victor Caraballo. Clinging to a broken scaffolding suspended 44 stories above midtown, 26-year-old maintenance man Victor Caraballo feared becoming a “crash dummy.” A day after he and coworker Stephen Schmidt, 49, endured a heart-pounding, 90-minute scare 450 feet up the face of the Hearst Tower, the Bronx man said he was lucky to be alive to tell the tale. “If anything goes wrong, I’m the crash dummy,” Caraballo told the Daily News Thursday of the fear that ran through his mind as firefighters raced to the rescue.
Caraballo, who lives in the Bronx with his mom and two pit bulls, said he has an “ordinary job,” but the horror above W. 57th St. proved his work takes guts. He said he and Schmidt were conducting a test drop of a window-washing rig about 2:45 p.m. when suddenly an average day turned into a thriller. “It was pretty scary at first,” said Caraballo, who works for Tractel Inc. “You see everything happen in front of you. All I heard was the metal snapping.” Despite dangling from the twisted scaffolding, praying for help to arrive fast, Caraballo described the incident in retrospect as a rare “technical difficulty.” “I have gotten stuck plenty of times, but not like this,” he said. “The way this happened it was pretty scary, but you deal with it.”
Still, he couldn’t suppress thoughts that “if it goes, I go with it.” Firefighters from Rescue Co. 1 executed the high-rise heroics with aplomb, cutting a hole in a 44th-floor window of the glass-and-steel skyscraper to pull the men to safety. “When the FDNY sent me the safe line, I knew everything was fine,” Caraballo said outside his Bronx apartment building, happy to be on terra firma and to have the day off. “They responded fast. Everything went good. I was very appreciative of what they did for us.” As soon as he was rescued, he called his mother. “She was a little shaken up,” Caraballo said. “She hates my job to begin with. So this makes her not want me to go back to work.” But Caraballo said he’s not about to give up his job, even for his mother. “Of course it crosses your mind,” he said of the occupational hazards. “But you got to stay positive. You don’t want to think like that.”