Bigge Crane & Rigging Co. and a company engineer, Claus Frederiksen, are the targets of a lawsuit, filed by both Entergy Arkansas and Entergy Operations, that claims the heavy-lift contracting giant failed to perform a load test prior to a fatal crane collapse at the two-unit Arkansas Nuclear One station on March 31.
The lawsuit, filed on July 12 in Pope County Circuit Court, accuses Bigge, one of the largest in its sector in the U.S., of "gross negligence."
Through a spokesman, Bigge declined to comment.
Entergy Arkansas and Entergy Operations—owner and operator, respectively, of the Arkansas Nuclear One (ANO) station—demand a jury trial and seek an unspecified but substantial financial award.
ANO Unit 1, an 836-MW pressurized-water reactor, was shut for an outage that included generator upgrades when a 550-ton stator—part of the generator for Unit 1—fell 30 ft while it was being removed from the turbine hall.