MSF: dropped object near-misses

The Marine Safety Forum has published two safety flashes (15-01 and 15-02) regarding a number of dropped object incidents.

In the first incident, a piece of timber which was approximately 300mm x 100mm, fell 15 meters from the crane jib support to a mezzanine deck area below. After an initial inspection, it was discovered that the dropped object was not a loose item that had been displaced but was in fact a section of the jib stowage arrangement, which had apparen’tly split and come lose from the jib support arrangement. The incident occurred during very poor weather conditions which may have contributed to the incident.

In the second incident, a single whip line headache ball and hook assembly detached from the crane and landed on the top of the safe haven damaging the deck. Fortunately the deck crew were standing clear and were approximately 4 metres from the point of impact. Although shaken, there were no physical injuries. The assembly weighed 160kg and fell approximately 50 meters giving an impact force of 784KN, which would most certainly have resulted in a fatality had it struck a crew member.