NEW YORK (1010 WINS/WCBS 880) -- A construction crane atop a Hell's Kitchen high-rise caught fire Wednesday morning and partially collapsed onto the street below, leading to a half-dozen injuries.
Flames were seen shooting from the crane hundreds of feet above W. 41st Street and 10th Avenue shortly before 8 a.m. The fire had risen to five alarms by 9:15 a.m. but was under control.
A plume of smoke drifted over the area as more than 200 FDNY members responded to 550 10th Ave. The address is a construction site for a 54-story mixed use building several blocks west of Times Square and just north of Hudson Yards.
Video shows the moment the crane's giant boom collapsed, crashed into the side of a neighboring building at 555 10th Ave. and then plummeted to the street below, with people running for safety.
Four civilians and two firefighters suffered minor injuries, officials said at a news conference. Construction workers and people on the street were among those injured. One firefighter was hospitalized with chest pains.
Mayor Eric Adams said thankfully people on the street weren't directly hit by the heavy debris.
"As you can see from the debris on the street, this could have been much worse," the mayor said. "We are extremely fortunate."
Flying glass and concrete from the building that was hit rained down, possibly leading to some of the injuries.
According to FDNY First Deputy Commissioner Joseph Pfeifer, a crane operator was moving 16 tons of concrete shortly before 7:25 a.m. when he noticed a fire in the engine compartment. He tried to put it out with a hand extinguisher but was overwhelmed and had to exit the crane.
"As our fire units responded to the scene, we had a collapse," Pfeifer said. "The top part of the crane, a boom and a 16-ton load crashed to the ground."
Pfeifer said flames weakened a cable on the crane and led to the catastrophic collapse.
The FDNY shot water at the fire from the roof deck of a nearby building, with firefighters eventually making their way onto the roof of the impacted building to spray the cab of the crane.
Other members of the FDNY evacuated nearby buildings and stretched hose lines to the top floors.
The cause of the fire is being investigated. Authorities said they also planned to investigate the structural integrity of the luxury residential tower under construction.
Witnesses described hearing an explosion and feeling their apartments shake around the time of the collapse. "If someone was sitting there having breakfast they'd be dead," area resident Eldridge Smith said.
Tenth Avenue remained closed between W. 38th Street and W. 43rd Street at 10 a.m. Surrounding streets are also impacted amid a massive FDNY and NYPD response.
Access to 10th Avenue from the Lincoln Tunnel was blocked, leading to inbound traffic delays of about an hour.
The crane is owned by the New York Crane & Equipment Corp., one of the city’s most widely used crane providers, officials said. The Queens-based company has been involved in other crane problems in recent years, leading to criminal charges and new safety measures around New York City’s crane operations.
The company did not respond to a request for comment from the Associated Press.
In May of 2008, a collapse of the company's tower crane killed two workers on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. The company and its owner, James Lomma, were acquitted of manslaughter and other charges; a mechanic pleaded guilty to criminally negligent homicide.
It was one of two deadly crane accidents in 2008, leading to the resignation of the city's buildings commissioner, as well as new safety measures around testing and oversight of crane operations.
Five years later, a crane owned by the company left a concrete cube dangling above a bustling pedestrian area for several hours, shutting down a major thoroughfare in Midtown Manhattan.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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