Wireless may have ensured crane inspection

NEW YORK, March 21 (UPI) -- A U.S. company says technology exists that would have tipped New York officials to the fact that a crane that collapsed hadn't been inspected.

Josh Kanner says the company he helped found, Vela Systems, makes a software solution that takes inspection data entered into a tablet personal computer at a construction site and sends it instantly to a remote location, a company news release said.

Vela has software developed specifically for safety inspections that eliminates the need for transcribing written reports and is filed wirelessly into a server. Such a system, Kanner said in a written statement, keeps supervisors up to date on what their inspectors in the field are doing and where they are.

The technology is designed for the "occasionally connected" in that it either transmits by WiFi or stores the data until it is hooked up to a hard-wired Internet connection.

A New York building inspector was arrested this week for allegedly falsely stating that he had inspected the crane that toppled on to a building last Saturday, killing seven people. The inspection had been ordered in early March after a resident of the area called to say the top-heavy crane didn't appear to be correctly supported.

City officials have said it was unlikely that inspecting the doomed crane would have prevented its collapse.