A crane knocked over a shipping container at a Vancouver freight terminal Friday morning, and the falling metal box almost landed on a truck driver waiting below.
The frightening incident has sparked calls for better safety protocol and worker supervision days before longshore workers are set to begin job action. It happened at Global Container Terminals’ Vanterm location near Clark Drive and Powell Street.
The Port Transportation Association (PTA) shared footage of the dangerously close call with Daily Hive Friday afternoon, saying the driver may have died if he’d been parked a few feet over.
“That driver wouldn’t even know what hit him,” PTA spokesperson Tom Johnson said. “It’s extremely disturbing to see a video like that. I’m speechless.”
Johnson explained that trucks are assigned to take specific boxes, which are selected from the pile by crane operators. But on Friday the crane operator didn’t raise a black shipping container high enough, and it knocked over a red one that tumbled down.
“He didn’t have it high enough to clear that one container,” Johnson said. “And it fell.”
The container didn’t land on the pavement, either. It crashed onto the chassis of the transport truck below.
Port Transportation Association/Submitted
A Global Container Terminals (GCT) spokesperson confirmed it’s aware of an incident November 1 where a container was accidentally knocked from a stack onto the chassis of a drayage truck in the adjacent lane.
“The landing impact jolted the cab of the truck, it was not directly hit,” the spokesperson said. “GCT superintendents and safety teams responded immediately, ensuring the driver’s safety; he did not require first aid on site and left the location to return to his depot.”
The Port of Vancouver confirmed it’s been in contact with GCT, which operates the Vanterm terminal, about the incident. It’s being investigated by GCT’s Joint Safety Committee. WorkSafeBC is not involved in the investigation because ports are federally regulated. Daily Hive has reached out to Transport Canada for comment, but has not heard back.
Johnson’s organization represents the trucks travelling to the terminal to pick up containers coming in by sea. Workers with his company are different from the longshore workers transferring goods at the terminal. Johnson is calling for stricter supervision of longshore workers to make the terminal safer.
“I want to make sure that whoever was operating that crane was not influenced by drugs or alcohol. That’s number one,” Johnson said. “Then, what’s the remedy? How does this never happen again?”
Daily Hive has reached out to the BC Maritime Employers Association (BCMEA) and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) for comment. Neither have responded.
The two organizations are currently engaged in the process of creating a new collective agreement, though negotiations deteriorated this week. Longshore workers’ job action is set to begin Monday, November 4. Workers are set to stop working overtime and refuse to implement technical changes.