Wind turbine blades rip loose near Esbjerg and southwestern Sweden, one landing on a hiking path A malfunction on a Vestas wind turbine in the town of Falkenberg on Sweden's southwest coast could have resulted in tragedy, as one of the structure's large blades flew off and landed on a track used by hikers.

On February 22 a 600 kW Nordtank wind turbine at Halling in eastern Jutland experienced a so called runwaway event causing its blades to spin out of control. Minutes later the blades collided with the tower and caused the turbine to collapse. In an unrelated event at Vig in Odsherred a Vestas V47 600kW wind turbine lost a blade. In both cases, Vestas assume that human errors in service and maintenance caused the events, but points out that they are in process of finding the accurate causes.

The climate minister will begin an investigation into two separate cases of Vestas wind turbines collapsing within the past week The climate minister, Connie Hedegaard, is calling for an investigation to determine the cause of two violent wind turbine collapses in Denmark in the past week. Both of the windmills were produced by Vestas, and Hedegaard's request to the Energy Board comes after other breakdowns both here and abroad have been reported in the past two months.

After the industry's recent boom years, wind power providers and experts are now concerned. The facilities may not be as reliable and durable as producers claim. Indeed, with thousands of mishaps, breakdowns and accidents having been reported in recent years, the difficulties seem to be mounting. Gearboxes hiding inside the casings perched on top of the towering masts have short shelf lives, often crapping out before even five years is up. In some cases, fractures form along the rotors, or even in the foundation, after only limited operation. Short circuits or overheated propellers have been known to cause fires. All this despite manufacturers' promises that the turbines would last at least 20 years.

Following the catastrophic failure of two Vestas wind turbines on Feb 22 and 23, 2008, the Danish energy agency requested an investigation into the events. A report was produced by engineers at Risø DTU. Below is the report translated into English. The original report, in Danish, can be accessed by clicking on the link below. A video of one of the failures can be seen here: http://www.windaction.org/videos/14294 . It is important to note that the debris from the first turbine failure which occurred on February 22 spread as far as 700 meters away. Risø DTU is formerly a government research institution under the Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation.