Feel sorry for drives, I imagine he/she is a well experienced person and as much as we can all have a post-mortem on here about it after the fact, I imagine the road wasn’t ideal to be going down and probably out of their remit to make the route decision.
Looks like he was worried about the bridge wall to his right with his trailer swing and needed to get closer to get round without going off the road. It’s easy to sit here and judge though, it would’ve been pitch black when it happened.
Agency…
well someone had to type it
Those tower sections are summat like 40 to 60 tons apiece? 3 or 4 metres diameter? maybe 15/20 metres long? Guessing, but Im sure someone can find more accurate figures. The trailer bogie may be steered from the fifth wheel of the tractor, or from the cab, or from a cable attached to it, or from the vehicle following, all depends on exact spec..The van following isnt there just for a set of flashing lights. Highways Agency would have been involved at the route planning stage. A dry run without the load would probably have been done before the actual move. A lot of people involved, all with intertwined responsibilities. . . . Enquiry into that will be going on for a while yet.
Well they wont pick it up with that outfit 
moomooland:
0 Well they wont pick it up with that outfit
Maybe drag it down t tip? Cant see them putting a multi million quid blade and generator atop a “shop-soiled” tower?
Just a suggestion as I have no experience at all with this kind of load, but is it just possible that the road just gave way?
I only ask as I have many many years experience of delivering to building sites in a “normal” artic all over the northwest, the lakes and the borders. Some of these site would be in the middle of nowhere, all would be pretty well planned when it came to access but normally only round the actual site itself.
I remember one site where we had been visiting for several months, I was following the brick delivery and it was a bit tight through a few bends when he suddenly just sank off the road, was in three quarters up his wheel. Turned out the road just gave up after being battered by all the deliveries and extra traffic.
I know these wind sites are set up well in advance with all dimensions etc factored in, but we have had a lot of freeze and thaw weather and these things are clearly very heavy. Looking at the last picture i imagine they all took a similar line through the corners so maybe it just sank away?? I know it’s just guess work but I don’t imagine these drivers are new to the job or in any kind of hurry to cut the corner?
moomooland:
0 Well they wont pick it up with that outfit
Guessing theyre extracting the real dolly/axle set only? Then maybe extract front axles and tractor leaving the tower section to be lifted last of all? No more than a guess mind. If, as some have suggested the road is soft, and maybe very wet under ground then itll be difficult to get a good firm stand for any crane man enough for the job??
MIck Gould’s Recovery website has a lot of incidents of the road giving way under a vehicle.
saw one of Ainscloughs heavy cranes on low loader A1m yesterday , looked like that had been on its side too…