8. Accidents

8.1 Causes of accidents

The risks involved in using tower cranes are many, and although maximum safety is sought and applied, accidents do happen.

The regional health insurance funds and their prevention departments record the accident investigation on a national database EPICEA (étude de prévention par informatisation des comptes-rendus d'enquêtes d'accidents du travail). The database for the analysis of accidents involving tower cranes between 1979 and 2014 identified 183 accidents.

Analysis of accident reports shows that there are several types of accident, each involving :

• falling, collapsing or overturning of the crane: this is the most frequent cause of accidents, and may be due to overloading,...