Massey Bucket drag..- OUCH

[JerryG]

It looks to me like the tractor was pulling the trailer. No truck involved. That is a dollie under the front of the trailer for the tractor to pull from.

 

[rback33]

No doubt he was pulling the trailer which is why it didn't flip instead. He was very lucky in some respects because I would bet paychecks he was headed to the field to load either large rounds or large squares of hay. If the trailer we loaded when it happened, I suspect it would have flat run over him. The trailer momentum did two things:
1) Had tongue weight on the rear to keep to from flipping
2) Had a lot of momentum to transfer into the tractor as it was being sandwiched.

The "compact" comment was funny. The email of the pics had a subject line of "KMW Loader Question." When I open the email, the body says, "I was wondering if KMW made a loader for this new style of compact tractor." I left him a VM saying that while we could not fit it right now, if he got us the tractor we could design one for it.

 

[MrSteve]

My thought... The Ford (showing plate) was pulling the trailer and tractor, the Ford lost the trailer off of the 5th wheel hitch (maybe broken hitch or pin), the dolly pin/goose of the trailer went into the ground after coming off of the truck (trailer is now stopped dead, truck still moving) and then the "untied" tractor came of the trailer and dug the FEL into the the ground.

All in all the ford driver said "Don't worry Bill the Ford can handle the load and no reason to tie the tractor, I am only going a mile down the road".

Just another reason not to over load your truck, even if you think it can pull a house.

 

[Birdhunter1]

I agree with Mr Steve on this one, the guy was probably working solo and needed the truck and trailer to load hay onto and pull back to the barn where he had another tractor to unload it or another trailer to hook up and bring back for more. Since he was by himself he hauled the tractor on the trailer so he could move both at once, he was probably on flat field roads and didn't have to go more than a couple miles so he didn't worry about chaining it down.
I realy don't think the tractor was pulling the trailer, there is no hitch for the goosenck to 5th wheel dolly, the only mark in the groudn is where the trailer hit the dirt and there does not appear to be any marks on the ground where the tires would have dug in as some are claiming. Plus it does not appear that the tires have anything on them and thos back tires would have really had to take a large bite to climb over the loader and snap the tractor in half. My guess is the tractor would have stalled, died and lost momentum before crumbling up the way it did.

 

[Birdhunter1]

Plus I am thinking if the tractor had been running a fire may have been involved as well.

Somebody should have amde a poll out of this!

 

[ray66v]

I have spent 30 years in the auto body repair business and have seen almost everything, one thing I am certain about is the tractor would have been moving very fast to be damaged this much, much faster than it is capable of going on its own. That means the only other plausible explanation is that it came off the front of the trailer, after the goose neck dug into the ground. The bucket of the FEL then dug in at an angle that would have caused the tractor to stop immediately but, not low enough for the tractor to flip over. Then the full weight of the tractor was tedering on the FEL frame and most of the forward inertia was now gone. The back of the tractor would have been very high in the air, coming down as the FEL frame buckled. As the tractor fell from the high point The entire weight of the unit would have slammed downward to the ground. This would explain the way the tractor is bent in the middle in two different directions. The only way the cab could be bent backward is if it was moving that way.

P.S. Cars don't very often catch on fire when they are wrecked (less than .01% have any sort of fire) that is something perpetrated by TV and the movies.

 

[Farmwithjunk]

The trailer has a dolly under the front end. It was most likely being towed by the tractor. In pic #3, it appears that the drawbar has substancial damage, indicating the trailer was hooked to it. Had the trailer been towed by the truck and came unhitched, there would have been no reason why the tractor would have rolled off the front. (Notice no skid marks behind trailer wheels) I'd say that trailer was PROBABLY going to soon be loaded with big round bales. No fire simply because diesel isn't a fire hazard. These pictures are popping up on every website in existance over the last few days. It's only a matter of time before "the rest of the story" emerges. For some reason, I'm thinking TEXAS here.

 

[morningwood]

Here is a web site that has a few more pictures:

Bad Day! - Massey Tractor and Loader

Scott

 

[ray66v]

The tractor is incapable of going the type of speed that would be required to do this kind of damage. 18 mph is not even close.

 

[buckwheat]

I'm not sure I agree that a low speed cannot do this. As an extreme example, think of a tractor being pushed by a freight train at 10 mph. If you drop the bucket into something substantial, the tractor is going to fold. Velocity is a big player, but so is mass.