I have been notified that the MEWP involved in this tragic accident was a Genie Z135 and the boom detached. The MEWP was a brand new machine. Wonder if there will be a press release from Genie or the HSE on this?

I totally missed this, it is quite a horrific sight, you really must feel for their family's at this point. Who said H&S isn't important.

I was copied into an email that seems to have come directly from Skanska (and now been released to other companies) stating "early indication as a boom collapse".

I drove past this on the opposite carriageway and witnessed the aftermath and after trying to impose my normal "no rubbernecking" rule, failed miserably and then promptly wished I had not. What seems missing from early reports thus far, is that the location is actually a MEWP hire firm with a yard full of various machinery for working at height. On any given day, this company regularly advertises their location by having a fairly large selection of booms almost fully elevated, in what must be for the company involved, a fairly effective way of advertising their presence to passers by on the M25. So my guess is that no actual "work" was being carried out, other than maybe demonstrating capabilities. Clearly it is too early to comment of speculate further on this very sad event.

Best thing to do then is delete the e-mail. Let the experts do their job and determine the cause and not some "know it all bloke down the pub" who has looked at one photo taken about 800 yards away and has already hung-drawn-quartered someone. Threads like this do nothing to help the breaved family or those involved in the FORMAL investigations. RIP fella.

Firstly, I would never use hearsay from "someone down the pub" as the basis of my post (or any other posts I provide). Nor would I use this information as needless gossip. I am fully aware that the family of the individual will be distraught, it would be unnatural not to empathize. However, this information came directly from an email trail that began from someone closely involved in the incident. Secondly, our role as safety professionals is to protect and prevent harm. Surely the sensible measure would be to share this useful information to hopefully enable others to take precautionary measures until it becomes clear as to what the underlying cause is/was. Dare I surmise, this was the intention of the email trail I received. The forum should be used to share knowledge and I would hope that my fellow safety professionals would appreciate the sentiment and understand humility and reasoning for the original post.

Lucky I am not part of your team then :-) Your opinion is obviously very different to mine but it will make no difference to my thought on this. I do hope that the information is not ignored and we do not see another incident like this. I, like others, will await the outcome of the formal investigation and will then take a more informative decision then. Until that time I would rather tread with caution. I wish you all the best.