No injuries in 'near miss'; crane operations shut down while investigation carried out

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ST. JOHN'S, N.L. — No one was injured in what has been described as a "near miss" incident involving a crane on the Hibernia offshore oil platform last Thursday, May 13, 2021.

However, a Canada-Newfoundland Offshore Petroleum Board (C-NLOPB) incident bulletin released Monday says the incident had the potential to be fatal.

Hibernia Management and Development Company (HMDC) stopped all crane operations on Thursday and started an investigation looking into the cause of the incident.

According to the incident bulletin, two workers were attempting to connect a 10-foot by eight-foot container-lifting bridle to an approximately 10-metre pennant line assembly, off of the east pedestal crane main hook.

Near Miss on the Hibernia Platform https://t.co/Hv8T7Y6f1J

The pennant line assembly has a D Ring, wire rope and hook. After the container landed unevenly on the cantilevered deck, it needed an adjustment. The crane operator was attempting to maneuver the main hook into the appropriate position when the main hook contacted a structural beam. This caused the hook to move from a vertical to horizontal position, and the five-kilogram D Ring slid past the spring-loaded latch on the crane main hook and fell approximately 10 metres. The entire pennant line assembly landed on the container, approximately 1.5 metres away from the closest person.

According to the bulletin, only authorized personnel were inside the exclusion zone. Due to the container taking up the whole footprint of the cantilevered deck, there was no potential for personnel to be directly under the pennant line assembly when it fell. There were also two structural beams between the lift and the location of personnel inside the exclusion zone. However, the incident had the potential for fatality, based on the Dropped Objects Prevention Scheme calculator.

The C-NLOPB is monitoring HMDC’s investigation of the incident.

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