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Comment by cperciva | Hacker News Reader

It could, and did, get approved as a mobile crane.

Then it was unapproved, thanks to political pressure.

Apparently the regulators thought it was mounted on a truck, but when they went in person to inspect it they discovered that he had built some sort of jury rigged contraption to move it around instead. This made it fall outside of their definition of a mobile crane.

The article insinuates that the union was behind it all, but I'm not convinced he didn't just piss off the regulators in this case.

That version of events turns out to be inaccurate:

-- Delia Shumway, a professional engineer and the executive director of the agency’s Cranes and Derricks Unit when the Skypicker was approved, emailed me that Chandler confused the Skypicker revocation with a ruling about an entirely different crane.

Shumway wrote, “He’s the one that’s misinformed. The piece of equipment that he’s referring to was not the Skypicker but IBK’s knockoff of the Skypicker. That machine was not in compliance. There was never any argument about that.” --

[1]http://buildingnyc.org/crains-crane-inventor-gives-his-side-...

That link has the best quote I've seen in ages: "We know that building construction requires a great deal of fabrication..."

There's no evidence of political pressure provided. There's an awful lot of unsubstantiated suggesting.

Looking at the crane though. Approving it as a mobile crane seems a bit on the bonkers side. Mobile cranes are self contained units and provide their own stability through mass. This bolts to the building. Which, if memory serves, was where building cranes were failing a few years back.

It's based on a JOMAC[1] boom crane, which are intended to be used on trucks.

I can see why someone might want to have them tested before approving them.

[1] http://www.jomacltd.com/mobile_cranes/telescoping_boom/

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