Unalaska, AK – Magone Marine used explosives to blow the upper legs off of the over-turned APL container crane Wednesday evening. Magone was contracted to remove the crane and clean up the yard. The 970-ton, 110-foot tall container crane blew over during a 125 mile per hour wind storm on December 4, 2009.

Dan Magone said that using explosives for removing such heavy pieces of steel from high in the air is much safer than using blow torches and cranes. "And then the other part of it is you'd have to park the cranes on the concrete apron at the APL dock, which won't handle that much concentrated weight any way. The concrete would break if you loaded the cranes up that heavy."

The way the dock is built, the container crane used to move back and forth on rails on a reinforced area of the dock. Other sections are not as strong.

Instead of using smaller cranes, Magone and his crew created specially shaped explosives and attached them to a wooden frame around the legs. The explosion cut thin lines into the top three plates of each metal leg.

"We left the bottom plate intact so when the top and the two sides cut and it would tip down, then it would hang from the bottom plate." The legs are attached by the one remaining plate and are held into place with chains and shackles, to make sure they don't fall off. Now, Magone's crew can safely remove the legs with cranes.

"Now that the load is lower, it's also swung closer to the gravel part of the yard so we can stand our cranes on the gravel and reach over now and get a hold of the load. So once we get the wheels off we can grab that beam with a crane on each end and cut that beam loose and it will be a safe load to handle with the cranes."

Magone will then dismantle the entire crane and salvage any useful metal to build docks and ramps. The cranes engines and other machinery have already been removed and salvaged. The parts that can't be reused will be recycled in Seattle. Magone said the entire job should take a couple of weeks. The job is complicated because he has to consider the physics of when to remove each part and how that will affect other sections of the crane. Magone said this is his first large steel demolition on land. He normally works with wrecks in the water.