High potential dropped object near miss: Steel ferrule failure

What happened

A winch wire failed causing a pennant assembly and wire to fall directly into a crane basket. There were no injuries. The incident occurred whilst operating a forward utility or ‘tugger’ hoist. Weight was taken by the winch to support a 1.5t basket, to assist the crane in removing the basket from the drill floor. The winch wire was under tension and the load was 5cm above the deck, when the winch wire failed sending the pennant assembly and wire directly down into the basket itself and finally coming to rest on the forward winch.

What went wrong/causes

The 20mm steel wire rope was pulled out of its Flemish eye termination due to a failure of the ferrule. The Marine Safety Forum (MSF) member reporting the incident considered that the incident had the potential to have been a fatality or to have caused multiple major injuries.

Lessons learnt/actions taken

Steel wire ropes should be checked for the correct crimping of the ferrule. Care should be taken to ensure that the ferrule shape is correct and the condition is good. In the case of 20mm steel ferrules, the 20mm steel ferrule when pressed should have been round and not hexagonal. Any 20mm steel wire ropes not meeting that criterion should be removed from service.

Note: Other rope sizes and ropes from other suppliers may have hexagonal ferrules and should be inspected.