Man basket inspection starts from a prohibition, because hoisting people with a crane does. Hoisting people with a crane is the one operation where OSHA starts from a prohibition. 29 CFR 1926.1431 permits it only when the erection, use, and dismantling of conventional means of reaching the work area — a scaffold, a ladder, an aerial lift — would be more hazardous, or is impossible because of structural design or worksite conditions.
That is the first test, and it is a written determination rather than a preference. Convenience does not satisfy it. Schedule does not satisfy it. Getting that determination right is more consequential than anything else in this article, because every requirement below only applies once you have properly concluded that the lift should happen at all.
The platform itself has to be designed, not fabricated
Personnel platforms must be designed by a qualified engineer competent in structural design. That is explicit in 1926.1431(e), and it rules out the shop-built basket that appears in a great many yards.
Design requirements include a minimum safety factor — the suspension system designed to support five times the maximum intended load, and the platform itself designed with a safety factor of at least five. The platform must have a guardrail system, be enclosed from the toeboard to mid-rail with solid or expanded metal, have an access gate that cannot swing outward and that has a restraining device to prevent accidental opening, and have overhead protection where employees are exposed to falling objects.
Marking is required: a plate or permanent marking showing the weight of the platform and its rated capacity or maximum intended load. As with below-the-hook lifting devices, an unmarked platform has no defensible capacity, and the crew will assign one generously.
The proof test, and what it actually requires
Before hoisting employees, the platform and rigging must be proof tested to 125% of the platform’s rated capacity. The test load is placed in the platform and held for five minutes with the platform suspended just above the ground.
Two details are routinely missed. First, the load must be distributed — concentrated at the platform’s center is not a valid test of a structure that will carry people standing at its edges. Second, after the test, a competent person must inspect the platform and rigging, and any deficiency requires correction and a repeat of the proof test before use.
The test is repeated at each new job site, and whenever the platform, rigging, or crane configuration changes. A platform proof tested last month at a different site with a different crane has not been tested for this one.
The trial lift comes before every shift
A trial lift with the unoccupied platform loaded to at least the anticipated lift weight must be made from ground level, or any other location where employees will enter the platform, to each location at which the platform is to be hoisted and positioned.
This happens immediately prior to placing personnel on the platform, and it is repeated whenever the crane is moved and set up in a new location or returned to a previously used location. The purpose is practical — verifying that the load radius, boom clearances, and positioning all work with weight in the platform before anyone is standing in it.
Immediately after the trial lift, a competent person inspects the platform and rigging to determine that the testing has not exposed any defect or produced any adverse effect. Then a visual inspection of the crane, rigging, platform, and crane base support is conducted to determine whether it is in safe condition for hoisting personnel.
Capacity is halved
The total load must not exceed 50% of the rated capacity for the radius and configuration of the crane. Not 100%, not 80% — half.
Total load means everything: the platform, the occupants, their tools, their materials, and the rigging. That arithmetic is where lifts get into trouble, because the platform’s own weight is substantial and crews frequently calculate using occupant weight alone. This is the same omission that catches people with heavy spreader beams, and the marking requirement exists specifically to prevent it.
Where the crane is equipped with a boom angle indicator, an anti-two-block device, and a load moment indicator, those must be functional — and 1926.1431 requires specific safety devices and operational aids for personnel hoisting, with no allowance for operating while any of them is bypassed. A machine with a defeated anti-two-block does not hoist personnel under any circumstances.
Rigging requirements are stricter
The hook used for personnel hoisting must be of a type that closes and locks, eliminating the throat opening, or the hook must be moused or otherwise secured. A standard spring latch is not enough — the requirement is a positive closure that cannot be released by the load shifting.
Rigging hardware must be capable of supporting, without failure, at least five times the maximum intended load. Bridles and associated rigging for attaching the platform to the hoist line must be used only for attaching the platform and must not be used for any other purpose when not hoisting personnel. That last requirement is regularly violated — personnel bridles get borrowed for ordinary lifts, which exposes them to loading and damage they were segregated to avoid.
Store personnel rigging separately, mark it clearly, and inspect it to the applicable sling criteria and hardware criteria before each use. Segregation is the practical control, and it fails without a physically separate storage location — the same problem covered in rigging storage.
What the man basket inspection covers
| Element | Verification |
|---|---|
| Structure | Welds, members, deformation, corrosion. Engineered design documentation on file |
| Guardrails and enclosure | Height, integrity, enclosure from toeboard to mid-rail |
| Access gate | Does not swing outward. Restraining device functions |
| Overhead protection | Present where required, secure |
| Anchorages | Fall arrest attachment points, condition and location |
| Marking | Platform weight and rated capacity legible |
| Bridle and rigging | Dedicated to personnel use, correct capacity, condition |
| Master link and hook | Closing and locking type or secured; hook criteria applied |
| Welds | Cleaned and examined; NDT where any doubt exists |
Fall protection inside the platform
Occupants must use a personal fall arrest system or a restraint system, attached to a structural member within the platform — not to the crane, not to the load line, and not to the guardrail unless the guardrail is designed and identified as an anchorage.
The anchorage point is the item that gets improvised. A platform without designated, identified anchorages is not ready for use regardless of its structural condition, and finding occupants tied off to a rail that was never designed as an anchorage is a live finding.
Free fall and the boom hoist requirement
The crane must have a hoist system that does not permit free fall, and the boom hoist must have a functioning brake or locking device. Load lines must be capable of supporting, without failure, at least seven times the maximum intended load — ten times where rotation-resistant rope is used.
Those rope factors are considerably higher than for ordinary lifting and are worth checking against the actual reeving rather than assumed. They interact with the criteria in running rope inspection, and a rope acceptable for material handling may not satisfy the personnel-hoisting factor on that configuration.
Documentation to have on site
Everything above generates paper, and it is expected to be available at the work location: the written determination that conventional means are infeasible or more hazardous, the platform’s engineered design documentation, the proof test record, the trial lift record for the current setup, the pre-lift inspection records, the crane’s current annual inspection, and the pre-lift meeting record.
The pre-lift meeting is itself a requirement. It is held with the crane operator, signal person, employees to be hoisted, and the person responsible for the task, reviewing the procedures before the lift — and repeated for any new employees or any change in the operation.
Operating restrictions during the lift
Once personnel are in the platform, the rules governing the crane tighten considerably. Hoisting must be performed slowly and smoothly, with no sudden movements. The operator remains at the controls with the engine running whenever anyone is in the platform — leaving the seat is not permitted.
The platform must be secured to the structure where work is being performed, unless doing so creates an unsafe situation. Employees keep all body parts inside during raising, lowering, and positioning. Personnel hoisting is prohibited in high winds, electrical storms, snow, ice, sleet, or other adverse weather that could affect safety.
Tag lines are used unless their use creates an unsafe condition. And crucially, the crane performs no other lifting while personnel are suspended — the machine is dedicated to that operation for its duration.
Power lines change the calculation entirely
Personnel hoisting near energized power lines carries requirements beyond the general clearance rules in 1926.1408 and 1926.1409. The minimum clearance distances for personnel platform operations are larger, and the deenergize-and-ground option becomes considerably more attractive.
Where any part of the crane, platform, or occupants could come within the applicable distance, the planning requirements escalate and the encroachment prevention measures have to be specific rather than general. This is one of the situations where the initial infeasibility determination deserves the hardest scrutiny — an aerial lift that keeps workers out of a crane’s electrical exposure envelope may be the safer answer even where it is slower.
How this fits the wider inspection program
Personnel platform requirements sit on top of everything else the crane needs, not instead of it. The machine still requires its shift inspection, its documented monthly, and a current annual, and the operator still needs to be certified for the equipment.
What personnel hoisting adds is a set of event-driven verifications — proof test, trial lift, pre-lift inspection, pre-lift meeting — that repeat with each setup rather than on a calendar. Programs that handle this well treat it the way they treat other event-triggered inspections: with the triggers written down, the responsible person named, and the record forms already prepared rather than improvised on the morning of the lift.
On construction sites where personnel hoisting is occasional, that preparation is what prevents a lift being performed on assumptions. The requirements are not difficult. They are simply many, and they are all checkable in advance.
Common questions
Can we lift personnel with a crane?
Only where conventional means of reaching the work area would be more hazardous or are impossible due to structural design or worksite conditions, per 1926.1431(a). That determination must be made and documented before anything else applies.
How often must a personnel platform be proof tested?
Before initial use at each new job site, and again whenever the platform, rigging, or crane configuration changes. The test is 125% of rated capacity, distributed, held five minutes.
What percentage of crane capacity can be used?
50% of the rated capacity for the radius and configuration, with total load including platform, occupants, tools, materials, and rigging.
Can we use a shop-built man basket?
Only if designed by a qualified engineer competent in structural design, meeting the safety factor and construction requirements, with documentation. An undocumented shop-built basket does not qualify.
Does the rigging have to be dedicated?
Yes. Bridles and rigging for attaching the platform must not be used for other purposes when not hoisting personnel.
What hook is required?
One that closes and locks to eliminate the throat opening, or a hook that is moused or otherwise secured. A standard spring latch alone does not satisfy it.
Do occupants need fall protection?
Yes — a personal fall arrest or restraint system attached to a structural member within the platform, at a designated anchorage.
The first question is still the hardest
Every requirement here is knowable and satisfiable. The determination that gets made least carefully is the first one: whether the work genuinely cannot be reached by conventional means, or whether a crane and basket is simply the fastest way.
If you are planning personnel hoisting and need the platform and rigging inspected and proof tested — or want an outside read on whether the infeasibility determination holds up — that is work we do, with the test records in the form the site will be asked to produce.
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