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Crane boom collapse

The UK HSE has fined an offshore drilling company after the catastrophic collapse of a crane boom. See here for the press release. The HSE reported: “Nobody was hurt in the incident on 31 March 2016 but a chaotic scene ensued after the collapse of the Rowan Gorilla VII’s boom, with flying debris da…

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Heavy equipment fell over during manual handling

During manual handling of a heavy control cabinet, the centre of gravity was compromised, and the cabinet fell over onto a crew member’s leg, resulting in a bruise to their knee. The incident occurred when crew were moving control cabinets each weighing 130kg. Each cabinet was fitted with wheels by …

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Crew Transfer Vessel (CTV) hit protruding scaffolding on a supply vessel

During transfer of crew to an Offshore Supply Vessel (OSV) at anchor, a Crew Transfer Vessel (CTV) came into contact with protruding scaffolding on the OSV, causing minor damage to a railing on the CTV. This was the fifth such transfer of personnel without incident; the Master was aware of the protr…

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Damage and personal injury arising from heavy weather

On a vessel waiting on weather, a weathertight door in the crane pedestal from the main deck to the crane room was forced open by a large wave coming from a different direction than the prevailing wind and sea. During operations to close the weathertight door, a vessel crew member was hit by water g…

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Pipeline End Manifold yoke dropped from 45° position

During adjustment of the yoke securing arrangement for a PLEM (Pipe Line End Manifold), the cargo strap failed resulting in the yoke falling and landing in its horizontal resting position. Two persons were working inside the PLEM in close proximity to the yoke at the time. Neither were injured. Whi…

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Operating Mobile Plant - Person in Line of Fire

A crew was installing electrical cable in a trench using specialist equipment (a ‘Cable Crawler’). As they reached the end of a cable the crew began to remove the cable drum from the rear of the Crawler so that they could load a new drum. The Leading Hand moved between the Cable Crawler and its hydr…

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Vessel damaged in contact with platform

A CTV (crew transfer vessel) collided with a fixed platform when one of the engines failed. The CTV was approaching a platform to transfer crew onto it, when there was a failure of control of the port inner main engine, causing it to continue to drive the vessel forward. Whilst control of the engine…

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wire rope hazard management - dropped turbine nacelle

A vessel crane was being used to offload the 69 ton wind turbine nacelle. While hoisting, a wire rope parted, causing the load to fall to the deck. No-one was harmed, but the load landed within a metre of working personnel – there was high potential for serious injury. There was significant damage t…

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Confined space entry – tank cleaning

Incident 1: What happened - worker required CPR A worker was vacuuming, and the nozzle became stuck inside the tank. To free the nozzle, the worker - who was wearing a respirator with organic filters specifically used for working outside the tank - fully entered the tank, where he fell ill. Coworker…

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Hot work whilst working at height in a confined space – job was stopped

During a site visit to a vessel, it was observed that a third-party contractor’s welder was standing on the wooden platform (the actual height was over 1.80m) inside a confined space (a ballast tank) doing some flame-cutting jobs. No fall protection guards were installed around the worker, not was t…

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Unauthorised entry into confined space

Planned repair works were taking place on a barge. The work involved hot work (welding & grinding). During the works, the stand-by person, controlling several areas, observed sub-contract personnel accessing a confined space in which welding was taking place. Stop Work Authority was exercised im…

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Two dropped object incidents

Incident 1 – dropped metal wedge A pin was required to be pulled on a hinge system for the dynamic gangway system on a W2W (walk-to-work) vessel. As part of this task metal wedges were used to hold some of the gangway components in place. The job of pulling the pins was not going as expected due to …