Select Plant Hire Company workmen had tried to extend the mast of the crane without proper training or independent safety supervision, and had left the cab balancing 200 feet above the ground, said Oliver Glasgow, prosecuting.
Lacking two vital bolts and washers to keep it in place, the cab toppled backwards into the Croydon Park Hotel in south London, in June 2007.
A worker who was in the cab at the time, 39-year-old John Young from Newhaven, East Sussex, spent hours dangling over one of the hotel's rooms from the roof. Mr Young received multiple fractures and spent 10 weeks in a body brace after he was rescued, but the court heard he still suffered pain and nightmares two years on.
Select Plant Hire, from Dartford in Kent, admitted breaking health and safety law, and Judge Anthony Morris said the untrained workers had misunderstood a manual diagram.
He said: "But for the cab striking the roof and breaking its fall, Mr Young would almost inevitably been killed."
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