Published Nationally ®
Southeast Edition
June 5 2019
$3.00
Vol. XXXII • No. 12
“The Nation’s Best Read Construction Newspaper… Founded 1957.” 470 Maryland Drive • Ft. Washington, PA 19034 • 215-885-2900 • Toll Free 800-523-2200 • www.constructionequipmentguide.com
Inside
Mobro Fishes Plane From Florida Waters By Brenda Ruggiero
Baton Rouge’s $353M Flood Project...8
Carolina Cat to carry Weiler, NorAm Lines...31
Final Piece Installed at New Liebherr HQ...62
Table of Contents ............4 Paving Section ..........31-45 Air Compressors, Generators & Light Towers Section ........47-56 Parts Section ..............58
CEG CORRESPONDENT
When an airplane skidded off the runway and into the St. Johns River on Jacksonville Naval Air Station (NAS) in Jacksonville, Fla., on May 3, Mobro Marine Inc. knew just what to do. “We became involved in the plane salvage and move when we heard about the accident on the news,” explained Stephen Cumella, who has been the chief financial officer for Mobro Marine since 2004. Mobro had performed work for Jacksonville NAS previously, so company president John Rowland contacted officials at the base to offer assistance. “Since it was a privately-owned aircraft, we were referred to the airline and its insurer as well as the company they had hired to assist them, Moran Environmental Recovery,” Cumella said. “We, along with other companies, described how we might salvage the plane, estimated timing of the work, equipment to be used and gave our cost proposal. [We] were selected on this basis.” According to the Associated Press, the incident occurred when the pilot of a military-chartered jet struggled to control the plane while landing during a thunderstorm with heavy rain. The Boeing 737 came from Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, with 136 passengers and seven crew members. It was reportedly a regular charter run by Miami Air International. The plane landed hard, then bounced and swerved before skidding off the runway and coming to a stop in the river. During the landing, oxygen masks deployed and overhead bins opened and spilled. There were no critical injuries, however, and passengers lined up on the plane’s wings while awaiting rescue. Officials said that 22 people were treated, but only a 3-month-old baby was hospitalized out of “an abundance of caution.” When National Transportation Safety Board investigators arrived the next day, the jet was still partially submerged in the shallow water with its nose apparently sliced off from the impact. They were able to obtain the plane’s flight data recorder, which should provide some insight into what went wrong. see MOBRO page 57
Use of Drones Becoming Standard for State DOTs By Joe Trinacria
Auction Section ......80-83 Business Calendar ........81 Advertisers Index ..........82
After a military-chartered plane crash-landed in the St. Johns River in Jacksonville, Fla., on May 3, Mobro Marine utilized its American 11320 450-ton crawler crane on a 180 by 54 by 12 ft. barge and a Kobelco CK1600G-2 on a 150 by 50 by 7 ft. barge to lift the aircraft prior to transportation.
CEG ASSOCIATE EDITOR
In 2016, when the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) first compiled the findings of its inaugural survey on drone usage among state
transit authorities, the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit received some surprising results. Back then, the United States was in the midst of a full-on frenzy for testing and purchasing drones, or Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), as the technology really began to take hold of the consumer conscious just one year
prior. But you wouldn’t know that there was a hot new item on the market judging by AASHTO’s initial report, which at the time revealed there wasn’t a single state transportation department that utilized drones as part of its day-to-day operations. see DRONE page 68