This caught my attention on the local news yesterday: a pickup towing a trailer wiped out or crashed on I-84 right over the Malad Gorge in Western Idaho. That left it dangling off the side of the bridge, attached only by the trailer safety chains, which are of course there not exactly for this purpose. The occupants must have had quite the intense wait, staring down into the gorge until rescuers were able to reach them and bring them to safety.
No indication was given what caused the crash, but that is a pretty long trailer, and if it wasn’t balanced properly, it may well have fishtailed, which can cause total loss of control. But it may have been something else.In any case, I’m pretty impressed how the safety chains lived up to their name.
I tow an RV trailer and the biggest problem is big unexpected gusts of winds. My hitch prevents sway but a lot of hitches can only limit sway and if the hitch is overwhelmed you are screwed. No saying this is definitely what happened. These people were damn lucky. The safety chains held and so did everything else involved with the chains attachments on the truck and trailer.
Exactly what news said, wind gust caused crash into and over the guard rail. In 2009 my cousin Ron, and his BF, another Ron were going to east coast to pick up 36 DeSoto, stopped in Montana, got parts, strapped to large car trailer, pulled by new Ram crew pu. Ron’s BF was driving, state police est it was hit by freak 100 mph wind gust broadside, flipped pu and trasiler, cousin Ron was ok, his BFpart ejected killed instantly. Ron replaced pu with Ram dually, doesn5 pu cars now, ships.
Crosswinds are the main reason why I haul horses with a gooseneck trailer, and would only use a bumper pull for short local trips. I’m not saying that a gooseneck is totally immune from the effects of crosswinds, but it’s greatly reduced, and more forgiving when it does occur.
Not sure I want to wait dangling like that for rescue. I’d be awfully tempted to climb out the side and up. Amazing the chains held. They must have bought a good brand.
Tempted, yes, but not so safe trying to scramble around the side of a crewcab without any sort of decent hand-holds or rails. I’d be afraid of losing my grip and tumbling down the gorge.
I think whatever brand it was they’ll be buying again.
Ladies and Gentleman this is the definition of Code Brown.
Simply amazing. The safety chains did have a bit of help though, during the rescue attempt. Apparently the driver of green semi truck (seen in the aerial image) witnessed the accident, and with help from the first state trooper on the scene, was able to attach some of his own heavy-duty chains to a reachable part of the pickup, and then anchored the other end to his rig.
So the safety chains and their attachments did miraculously keep the truck from plunging over, but the pickup was suspended by some heavier duty chains for most of the time it was dangling. Not that that lessened the anguish for the folks inside, though. Incredible rescue there, too.
I’m not an expert on steel, but it seems to me that the greatest stress on the chains would have been when it arrested the fall of the truck. Having done that, I assume the stress would be less in just keeping it there. certainly good to add more chains, but I suspect ultimately the exciting chains weren’t likely to break having done the most demanding task already.
It was a very good idea to secure this load with the extra chains as soon as possible.
Although the safety chains survived the initial extreme dynamic loading, there could have been some component near yield point.
For example, possibly an “injured” chain or an anchor point could “peel” while the truck was dangling.
It’s always possible for the unknown/unrecognized to come into play. Never let your guard down after some “save” and believe for even a moment that “Murphy” isn’t still lurking and waiting for a second chance.
You are correct that something could have been near the yield point and that truck wasn’t exactly a perfectly static load. Not to mention that the trailer was not a great anchor point. Meanwhile the truck had the mass and friction to be a great anchor.
You may not be an engineer but you got it perfectly right. Actually surprises me that more people can’t. Failure to visualize? Model? Compare to similar personal experience? Make reasonable transferable asssumptions? For practical purposes steel doesn’t creep. Anybody whose ever bent a paper clip knows this. Static vs dynamic load. Is there anybody who doesn’t grasp that stopping the fall of an object takes more force than just holding it. Kind a like that dumb “if you jump up at the right time in a falling elevator” concept. I didn’t need an engineering degree not even the ability to start shaving to understand that the tiny bit of upward velocity I could subtract by jumping up would be negligible compared to a falling elevator. I can also say that in the similar situation after screaming crying and purging the system I would not have felt I was going to die any second . Although my lizard brain might’ve felt differently
The thing is a truck dangling over the side of a bridge with people in it should not be considered a static load. Even if the occupants are paralyized with fear the nose hanging down below the bridge can be acted on by the wind as it makes its way around the bridge. Maybe as it sat the load was being shared fairly equally but a gust of wind could cause a shift that could result in one chain being forced to take the majority of the load and reach its failure point. Once it went the second could follow. Plus the act of getting them out could cause a shift in weight.
It would also be a stretch to consider the anchor to be static. There is a lot of flat surface on that trailer for the wind to work against which again could push something past the limit.
No, I don’t know if it was particularly windy there or if that is something common in that location but winds can pick up quickly with no warning.
Yes chances are that everything would have held until the rescuers were able to get them out, however the move by the trucker and the officer first on the scene was a very good idea. That provided a much better anchor in the truck and its tires as well as supplied a chain and anchor points that in theory had not been subject to a high shock load.
goodness no one is arguing that extra chains are not prudent.would do the same. but stop the flimsy arguments. 400 lbs of people moving in a cab 20 feet from the attachment point of a 7000 lb vehicle ate not going to constitute a significant load change compared to the ” save”.
That bridge looks like a perfect place to find black ice. Even a small patch and momentary loss of traction could throw you out of control with no place to run off except straight down. Those bridge railings are only waist high and don’t seem adequate to halt anything determined to go over them especially in a lateral direction or just a pick up with a high center of gravity and tall tires.
I’m amazed and impressed that the chains and mounting points all held. I can’t tell where exactly they are attached but it looks like the rear frame rail. Everyone is pretty happy they took the safety chain part seriously.
Imagine the sense of vertigo when one moment you are rolling along, the next you are heading over the edge and the next when your decent is suddenly arrested but all the loose contents in the bed of the truck fall past you and continue down to the bottom of the gorge in slow motion probably. That alone would make your head spin until you remembered to breath again.
So much here but let me say this – how brave are those rescuers?
A first for me is that tricycle off road dump truck!
L.p. That is a fertilizer spreader, sometimes called a floater because the large tires allow it to cross ground to soft to walk on.It has 3 wheels so that the tires don’t follow in the same tracks.
Thank you G706 .
I was going to ask what the ag. vehicle was….
This is certainly a scary scenario .
-Nate
That’s amazing.
I’m really glad that the chains held, and that the rescuers got there in time.
Great photo footage too.
Definitely code brown.
The occupants of the pickup will have something to talk about for the rest of their lives.
That’s some serious off roading.
That truck driver was in the right spot at the right time. Hooking up his very high strength commercial chains likely bought enough time for first responders to arrive. Probably provided enough reassurance to the occupants so they didn’t have a heart attack. Also shows how critical metallurgy standards are and how we often take them for granted. I don’t know how much ultra high strength steel was involved but if this would have happened with vehicles prior to its usage it this likely would have been fatal.
Props to that truck driver for chaining his truck up to that dangling pickup. He probably saved their lives.
Why would the safety chains fail after they already managed to stop the fall of the truck, which would have put more stress on them than just hanging there?
Paul…not everyone gets it.
I can think of 101 scenarios were a load could be thought to be secure because the rigging had just gone through some higher load threshold – when in fact the load is not secure. Many of the 101 I’ve witnessed.
Example? While a chain is loaded it “grapevines,” twists, basically. The chain is not loaded in its designed way, in “stretch” with each link in equal tension; a chain may be permanently weakened by a grapevine.
If a “grapevine” unwinds it can drop the load with a short free-fall that ends with a sudden shock. The shock may be enough to break some component of the rigging.
When the truck went over the bridge who knows how the chain payed out?
Lives were at risk. There was nearby gear available to mitigate the risk. Great decision to secure the truck.
good grief. who said it was a bad decision? the objection is to bad analysis. ever try to set an old sty li e mousetrap…a bit touchy because its a fine balance point . This must have been a spectacular crash. with he truck swinging up over and down … And being stopped by the chains without failure. Easily twice the static load.. Or just assume 50%. Be pretty amazing if everything worked out so you were on the mousetrap knife edge again. same thing withe “brave” rescuers. strapped in properly to a crane whose capacity is 20x your weight? are the rescuers skilled /competent /needed /applauded? yes. would i embrace and thank them for saving my loved ones yes. but they are not “dangling over an abyss” any more than standing on a bridge.they are safely supported by a system designed to hold many x more weight.
As to bad analysis – exactly!
My point is that we don’t know. Assumptions are being made which are in fact unknowns to those of us simply studying the pictures.
For example, the assumption that the chains “caught” this load with a mousetrap-like snap.
Notice the torn-out suspension components? A lot of energy was absorbed “extracting” those. For all we know the truck actually was gently “eased” into its precarious position and the chains were only then seeing their maximum loading.
Notice the truck’s contact with a bracket located on the bridge deck? Notice the truck’s contact with the beam flange? How much load were those contact points holding? Was the truck a .125 wiggle away from losing the support of those contact points and sending the chain system into overload?
Again, we don’t know.
Lastly I’ll say that despite common miscommunications low-carbon steel is a very elastic material which can reach failure with a slow yield.
To me, this bracket attached to the bridge deck was the “winning lottery ticket.”
Had the truck left the bridge 8″ either way from the bracket it would have changed everything.
Notice that the safety chains are not loaded with any sort of vertical dangling of the load?
Had the truck left the bridge 8″ either way from the bracket it would have changed everything.
Except it didn’t leave the bridge just there. Don’t you know how this happened? The truck went out of control before it got to the bridge, and then went over the bridge railing at the beginning of the bridge, and then slid along the bridge with the chains sliding over the top of the railing, until it came to a stop there.
Here’s the quote: Witnesses said the driver of the pickup lost control and swerved right, hitting the right shoulder of the interstate. That initial hit caused the truck to slide on the left guardrail and ultimately tip over the bridge.
There’s no realistic way this truck would have just jumped over that barrier and rail, given the position it’s in.
I don’t know what you’ve concluded with your analysis, but it has nothing to do with how it actually happened.
As to my original point, it stands. Which was never to suggest that it wasn’t a good idea to secure the truck with additional chains. I just pointed out that the probability of it not breaking after all it had done up to that point was not great. We’ll never know, but it’s not really a point that’s worth an endless debate. There’s no way to prove it, obviously. Except maybe to examine or test the chain afterwards.
I don’t know how it happened. Chances are the witnesses know a whole lot less than it may seem they would.
My conclusion is that it was fate’s fickle finger in conjunction with the fortunate location of the bracket. Had the truck traveled on the top rail for one segment more or less before breaking through, the bracket wouldn’t have been there and the ONE (study the pic) chain wouldn’t have had a chance to restrain the load.
The chain is basically imparting a horizontal pull to keep the truck on the bracket, which said bracket is supporting the truck’s weight; possibly in conjunction with the lower beam flange.
@Jim, yes just way too many unknowns in this situation and no way to determine what is carrying what part of the load and how close any particular piece is to failure.
You make an especially good point about chains being twisted, and the undesirable consequences. Particularly when we are talking about safety chains on trailers as some people like to twist their chains to shorten them which can reduce their strength considerably.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clj42no4DxY&w=560&h=315%5D
My conclusion is that it was fate’s fickle finger in conjunction with the fortunate location of the bracket.
What bracket?? What you’re apparently identifying as a bracket is just some piece of sheetmetal from the truck that’s wedged between it and the bridge side. There’s absolutely no brackets sticking out of that bridge. here’s a picture of it. Where’s “the bracket”??
Had the truck traveled on the top rail for one segment more or less before breaking through, the bracket wouldn’t have been there and the ONE (study the pic) chain wouldn’t have had a chance to restrain the load.
All total rubbish, as per the eye witnesses and the fact that there clearly is NO bracket. It never looked like one to me; just some trapped debris.
I’m sorry, but your analytical skills are not quite what you make them to be. And this is hardly the first time.
@ Scoutdude: I know it’s really important for your self-esteem to prove me wrong whenever possible, but can you just drop it already? You’re just parroting irrelevant arguments.
Jim’s analytical skills are clearly faulty; You’re backing the wrong horse in this silly debate.
Where’s the “bracket” in this shot? Oops; looks like it fell down into the gorge once the pickup was moved a bit.
In this shot, the “bracket” is clearly just part of the underbody debris that was torn off as the truck slid along the guard rail.
If there is no bracket then that part of my theory is out the window.
As to Paul’s Exhibit A, the Alamy Stock Photo, Paul, could you orient us with that please?
In the wreck site photos we can see that the truck went over at a connection in the bridge’s steel beam. To the left of the connection we can see workmen standing on a ledge. Where is that beam connection and ledge in the Alamy Stock Photo?
Sorry, I’ve got better things to do than waste more time debunking your crackpot theories. It makes no difference, as there’s obviously no “brackets” anywhere on the bridge’s concrete sides.
Suggestion: you find more pictures of the bridge, including the vaunted bracket. Good luck. It’s your theory, after all.
One last image and then I’m moving on.
I found a report that focused on being factual rather than sensational.
I hope the link will post.
https://www.kmvt.com/video/2021/03/16/quick-action-secures-truck-dangling-over-bridge-near-malad-gorge/
The reporter is very clear on the fact that the bridge beam is supporting the weight of the truck.
Give a guy some credit. After a few ten thousand lifts he develops an intuition for what makes sense and what doesn’t. LoL
RING!!! Hello? Oh hi Jim…, oh not much, we’re just hanging around ……..
Yee!
(I’m trying to figure out what took the rear axle out of the truck.)
Going over the barrier?
Guardian angels were watching over all of them.
if by guardian angels you mean steel chains yes.
So… Harbor Freight, yes or no?
One of the key improvements on trucks are the factory integral trailer hitches. The hitch is all part of the rear mount crossmember and bolted into the frame rails. My guess the rear axle was dislocated when it hit the jersey barrier on the way over the edge.
Strewth! Bit of a puckled freckle for the driver there, I reckon.
Shit, I get nervous on the Skyway out of Chicago.
I kind of know the feeling…ours was scary enough, without going over a bridge railing!
I’m 99% certain that I would perish from heart failure. I don’t have a weak heart that I’m aware of, but heights are a no-go. I’m sweating just looking at these photos.
I think we are lulled into a false sense of security that guard rails and concrete barriers are totally effective. Maryland’s 4 mile long parallel Chesapeake Bay Bridges are quite high and a bit unnerving to cross. We were always told that the barriers would prevent any vehicle from going over the side, but it’s happened twice. Modern traffic engineering is great, but nothing can be totally foolproof. I always breath a sigh of relief when I make it to the other side.
I drive 2000 miles plus every week, and I have to say I find the guard rails on many interstate bridges absolutely laughable.
They give me no sense of security whatsoever.
From what I read elsewhere from a supposed eye witness is that the truck lost control before the bridge and slid into the barrier with the truck on the outside and the trailer thankfully on the inside.
Safety chains come in lots of different strengths. You can find them rated as low as 2k lbs each to ones that run up to 20k or more per. Obviously these were not on the low end. Thankfully they didn’t go with the cables as I think they would have been more likely to damaged by abrasion while sliding down the barrier.
To me the chain failing would not be my biggest concern, the attachment points on the trailer would be my biggest concern based on the various ways I’ve seen them attached in the past on other trailers. The connection on the hitch side would also be a concern. Many of the 10k and under rated chains use a S hook out of bent steel that could return to straight. The higher rated units typically use a forged hook.
Then there is the “loop” on the hitch. That truck is newer than mine but from what I can see it is similar if not the same as my older factory SD hitch on it the chain connection is a piece of 3/16″ plate that acts as a gusset between the receiver tube and the cross bar. So you can put a hook on it the hole is 1/2″~5/8″ from the edge of that plate. Personally I’ve looked at mine while hooking up a chain and questioned the strength of that compared to some of the other hitches I have/had. My Mountaineer’s factory hitch for example has loops formed out of 1/2″~5/8″ rod which is welded at each end and just looks stronger. Though I guess this proves that the set up on this truck is up to the task, hopefully I never put mine to the test.
Wow. Just wow. Look. this started with the chains were gonna fail any second to an armchair CSI. My point was simple: pretty frigging unlikely after an “energetic” calamity it is highly unlikely that the truck was going to drop due to a small system upset. THAT was my mousetrap point. Same with the failure of mild steel. UNLIKELY that itmanaged to be RIGHT on that knife edge. PS I am a Mechanical Engineer and a bit more. THAT being said, enough with the arguments. I promise ALL of you, if i come across you dangling in that situation I will do all in my power to provide additional security without suggesting that you “shaddup and chill because I am right”. I hope you will do the same and not say “TOLD YOU SO” while I plummet to my demise. Fair enough? PEACE..drive safe.a
For me, it started when I noticed the angle of the single “swing set” chain and I knew from real world experience that there is NO way that one chain alone could suspend an F350 that way, let alone stop it in a fall.
Exact capacity for a chain in such an angle pull could be checked in a load chart. I wouldn’t doubt that the rating would be in the hundreds of pounds. So my thought was that something else must have stopped and be supporting the truck, however, we weren’t getting accurate information on that.
Regardless, the safety chain saved the day, no doubt, it deserves credit. Especially so considering how his partner chain took a fall early in the fight and he had to finish up alone. LoL
But it came down to two issues, the mechanics and the politics of what actually happened.
This reminded me of trying to get to the bottom of some “covered up” incident with kids or employees. LoL
You have to question every little detail in hopes of figuring out what actually happened.
Which by the way is why it’s so important to NEVER snap when getting the ugly truth, no matter how bad it is. If subordinates know that you’re not going to blow up or retaliate you’re more apt to get to the truth sooner.
With the bracket, “Paul’s dog” may have barked up the wrong tree for a minute but he still got Paul his rabbit. LoL
Finally, KMVT deserves a pat on the back for their straight forward factual reporting. It may not seem so sensational and click worthy to learn that the bridge beam did the brunt of the save but what a breath of fresh air to hear the simple truth!
And if I ever find one of y’all in a cliff-hanger, I too will slap on an extra chain, instead of checking the rigging manual to see if you really need it. LoL
But afterwards I’m going to want to know what really happened, and don’t give me any crosswinds BS!
I never said that the chains were going to fail at any minute. It was other parts of the system that were my concern. Chain is a wonderful thing in that it automatically aligns its strong axis with the load. It is everything else that is in question. IF anything was near the failure point a slight change could push it past the failure point.
Exactly.
I just looked on a random Googled chart, for the heck of it. Sling load at a 30 degree pull is doubled from a straight pick. At 20 degrees it goes triple.
If the pictured “rigging” were taken at face value, as it’s frequently been represented, with the fulcrum point being approximately at the wheel well, and some 15 feet of 5000# F350 cantilevered without support from the bridge beam… The load on such a rigging would be off the charts, to the moon.
A good simple study in this is pulling junk trees. An angled pull on practically a shrub will snap a chain that with straight pulls has been extracting big trees all day.