New York's second fatal crane collapse in three months rattled the city's construction industry and cast the spotlight on a sector that has struggled nationally to maintain safety as the credit crunch and a slowing economy have squeezed developers' profits.

At about 8 a.m. Friday, the upper part of a crane being used to build a high-rise apartment tower on 91st Street on Manhattan's Upper East Side snapped at its hinge and fell against a 23-story apartment building across the street. The crane sheared off balconies on the apartment building before collapsing on to the street below. The crane operator and another construction worker were killed; a third worker was seriously injured.

The collapse comes after months of hand-wringing as the construction companies and their government regulators faced a string of accidents. In March, a crane collapsed, killing seven people at a condominium project not far from the site of Friday's accident. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. has suspended construction of its $2.4 billion headquarters in lower Manhattan after several mishaps, including one where several tons of steel fell on a construction trailer, severely injuring an architect working inside.

Associated Press The fallen crane lay in the intersection of 91st Street and First Avenue Friday.

Including Friday's crash, 15 people have been killed in construction mishaps this year in New York, local officials say. Twelve died in all of 2007. Other cities with building booms, such as Dubai, Miami and Los Angeles, have faced similar construction-safety issues. In Las Vegas, 10 construction workers have died in the past 18 months.

Nationally, construction is one of the more dangerous industries, along with agriculture, mining and fishing, according to government statistics. More than three construction workers a day died in 2006, for a total of 1,239, the most recent numbers available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That is an increase from 1,131 in 2003. However, on a per-hour-worked basis, the rate of fatalities and nonfatal injuries has declined slightly in that time period. Statistics were unavailable for the past 18 months, a frenzied period in commercial construction, particularly for tall buildings such as hotels and condominiums.

Barry LePatner, a construction-industry attorney and a vocal critic of industry practices, says developers and contractors are under extra pressure these days to get projects done as the economy slows and demand for real estate wanes. A delay on a project can mean millions of dollars a month in so-called carrying costs. "Those carrying costs can kill the profits that looked so good on paper two years ago," he says.

Getty Images New York City Fire Department firefighters work on the scene of the crane collapse.

Acknowledging that the industry is reeling, Richard T. Anderson, president of the New York Building Congress, a trade group, says there needs to be "comprehensive review" of construction regulations. "We have addressed these kinds of issues in the past. It may be time to do this again," he says.

Another factor is inexperienced contractors and workers who have flooded into the industry. Construction-industry executives have moaned in recent years about the lack of top-level engineers and site managers, including crane operators.

Mr. LePatner says contractors are spread thin with too much work and government hasn't kept up. "We are facing double and triple the size of construction, and there wasn't a commensurate increase in the number of inspectors. There wasn't a recognition that we had a lot of new companies and lot of people coming in from out of town into this business."

• Housing Blog: Questioning Crane Operators' Qualifications

The contractor and co-developer on the project, called the Azure, is the Leon D. DeMatteis Construction Corporation, of Elmont, on Long Island. The project has completed 13 of 34 stories. "It's an unfortunate tragedy and our prayers and thoughts are with the families," said company spokesman Don Miller. "We are currently in the process of gathering all the facts surrounding this unfortunate accident and will provide more details as they become available."

Write to Alex Frangos at alex.frangos@wsj.com

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