[didmac0 (OP)]

This was a new one on me--literally!

Today I was operating a Kobelco excavator. The front window was in the slid up position, meaning it was above my head against the roof of the cab.
I was grading next to a new home, not doing anything extraordinarily rough, when, without warning, the window fell out of it's tracks, bounced off my head, and landed in my lap.

Since I rarely use my head for anything anyway, that wasn't too much of an issue, but the window ended up resting partially on the right joystick, pushing it forward. This caused the boom to lower, to the extent that it lifted the machine a good two feet off the ground on that side. Another foot closer and there would have been damage to the house, but as it was nothing was hurt.

The point is, that things could have turned out much worse. For instance, if I'd been at the edge of a bank the un-commanded boom movement could have upset the machine, or if the window had come to rest on the other joystick, the boom could have swung wildly around and done damage or injured someone nearby.


Just something else for you all to watch out for...

[Mazurka]

Could have been nasty.

I remember working on a site where the a bee flew into the cab of 60T komatsu and the driver paniced and nearly took out the dumper he was supposed to be loading...

That took some explaining.

[LeeE]

It would be a good idea to report this incident to the manufacturers.

[Pop Alexandra]

That sounds like some faulty hinges.
As far as I know, that model doesn't usually have this problem.