What happened? During a decommissioning project, a wooden wedge, weighing approximately 13 kg, dropped 6m, striking a rigger’s hard hat and shoulder on its way down. The rigger suffered minor […]
Safety Flashes
IMCA safety flashes disseminate important information on incidents and potential hazards and the lessons learnt from them that can help prevent incidents occurring elsewhere in the industry.
Individual safety events are available individually online, tagged and searchable, while the traditional PDF collections are also available for download.
Submit a Report
All members are encouraged to contribute relevant safety-related information – please visit our Safety Flash Reporting page for details on the submission process.
IMCA Contact
Nicholas Hough
Consultant - Safety and Security
Contact
Safety Events
Grease itself is a dropped object!
What happened? During crane operations on an offshore vessel, quantities of grease fell from the crane block and landed on deck. The incident occurred in daylight, when a wellhead head […]
Routine test of lifeboat launch results in fatalities
What happened? On the Auger platform in the Gulf of Mexico during routine testing, a lifeboat fell into the sea with two persons on-board. Both were fatally injured. The […]
Listing of crew boat due to water ingress
What happened? During her first voyage after drydocking, a crew boat started to list. A bilge alarm signal was received on the bridge, informing that there was water inside starboard […]
Davit failures
What happened? A member reports two recent issues relating to the davits of small boats: During routine inspection of the rescue boat equipment and davit swing, it was noted that […]
High potential near miss – rescue boat davit failure (MSF)
What happened? The Marine Safety Forum (MSF) has published Safety Alert 19-07 relating to a rescue boat davit failure during the boat’s periodic launch and testing. During the swinging out […]
LTI – fall from height
A service engineer fell off a radar antenna and was seriously injured. The incident happened after two service engineers from a subcontracted company were on a vessel for the day […]
Mooring incident: mooring line slipped off and snapped back
What happened? During mooring operations of a cargo barge, a mooring line slipped off the cargo barge bollards, causing it to whip back and hit the attending tug. The tug […]
LTI during mooring operations
What happened? During mooring operations in the forward mooring deck of a large vessel, crew were in the process of sending out lines to line handlers ashore. When sending out […]
Accidental activation of emergency stop during saturation diving operations
What happened? Emergency stop buttons were accidently activated on a vessel engaged in Saturation Diving Operations in the 500m Zone. This caused the Starboard Voith Schneider Propulsion (VSP) System to […]
Near miss: diver’s umbilical trapped
What happened? During near-shore diving operations, a divers’ umbilical became trapped against a seawater intake. The dive team (2 x divers, 2 x tenders and dive supervisor) had completed a […]
Near miss fire – epoxy overheating
What happened? Smoke was seen coming from a 20′ freight container on the deck of a vessel. The smoke was caused by remnants of used epoxy which nearly caught fire. […]
Smouldering coiled extension cable
What happened? While ventilating a manhole in the engine room, the fire alarm was triggered when an electrical extension lead overheated, melting the insulation and started smouldering. What went wrong? […]
Fire main dust cap blown away by pressure from the line
What happened? A fire main dust cap was blown off by pressure from the line and hit the wall 10m away. The incident occurred when a fire team were checking […]
Near miss: fire/explosion thermal runaway – lead acid battery
What happened? An overheated and swollen lead acid battery was found on-board a vessel. What went wrong? When charging, the temperature inside the affected battery rose beyond the critical level. […]
Seawater entering cabin caused electrical fault
What happened? During vessel operations, a porthole in a passenger’s cabin was left untightened and slightly ajar. This allowed for seawater to enter the cabin and seep into the electrical […]
Fire in incinerator exhaust gas manifold
What happened? During burning of sludge in the vessel incinerator, there was a high exhaust gas temperature alarm. Smoke appeared from the incinerator exhaust gas manifold, followed by a fire […]
Near miss – two dropped objects (MSF)
What happened? The Marine Safety Forum (MSF) has published Safety Alert 19-08 relating to two dropped object incidents on the same vessel. Both events had the potential to cause major […]
Mattress beam landed very close to divers
What happened? During subsea lifting operations with divers in the water, a large mattress lifting beam was lowered inappropriately close to the divers. The two saturation divers were deployed on […]
Crane anti-two block securing wire failure
What happened? During routine lifting activities, a vessel crane’s (auxiliary) anti-two block (A2B) suspension wires failed, causing the A2B weight assembly to fall along the crane wire to the crane […]
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