Collapsed crane lifted clear of boxship at Port of Tyne
A 750-tonne gantry crane that fell onto a container ship at the Port of Tyne has been lifted clear, in a ten-hour operation on 30 July using the heavy-lift sheerlegs MATADOR 3 brought in from Rotterdam. The crane came down during an incident involving the offshore installation vessel Wind Orca and the container ship BG Orange, and one person suffered an injury that was not life-threatening.
The lifting vessel has a capacity of 1,800 tonnes, well above the mass of the crane itself, which gave the salvors margin to manage the awkward geometry of a collapsed structure entangled with the ship's own gear. Removing the crane was the precondition for everything else, since neither the vessel nor the affected quay could be properly assessed while several hundred tonnes of steel remained resting across the deck.
Attention has now turned to the cargo. Five damaged containers remain to be removed from the ship, and the plastic pellets that spilled during the incident have been the focus of the environmental response. Pellets have been vacuumed out of two containers, while a third still holds pellets but is not leaking. Containment booms have been deployed around BG Orange and at Jarrow Bridge on the River Don to limit further dispersal into the wider waterway.
The response has drawn in a broad group of authorities. The port is working with South Tyneside and North Tyneside Councils, Northumbria Police, the Marine Accident Investigation Branch and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency. Investigation and clean-up are proceeding in parallel, with the accident branch examining how the collapse occurred while operational teams deal with its consequences.
Officials have stressed that the pellets are non-toxic and present a very low risk to public health, though they are difficult to recover once dispersed and remain a persistent nuisance on shorelines. The North Shields Ferry Terminal, which was affected in the early stages, has been cleared. Normal operations at the container terminal will resume in stages as the remaining damaged boxes are removed and the quay structure is checked. The loss of a gantry crane is a serious operational setback for a terminal of this size, since replacement units take many months to procure and commission. Until then the berth will work at reduced capacity, and the port faces a period of managing calls with less equipment than its schedule was built around.
