Speaking from experience, politics aside, doing big, heavy, high pics in a downtown setting can be complicated particularly when it comes to wind. The wind through a big city scape can be unpredictable and gusty. Those can be dangerous conditions for crane pics. Either rigging broke or the operator dropped the load before twisting or tumbling the crane. Both are bad deals. I would be interested to understand the final accident details and root cause.
The report I read yesterday said a strap broke. Good point about wind, and the picture I saw looked like the load was to be pulled horizontally, once at elevation. Could be the strap was cut during this maneuver. Plenty of speculation in my remark - but something went completely wrong, and if a strap just “broke,” it’s either gross negligence, or something other than simple overload. Safety factor on fabric parts of a lift is really high.
When I drove flatbed, redundancy was the name of MY game .... I used more chain or strap, just because I had it ... and all the training films of years before were ever present in my memory
a 60 mph almost dead stop (like a night time rear ender) hauling 80,000 can rightly title that relatively small 4 or 6 inch pipe in back of you ... a headache bar.
What you say about city picks is right on.