Near-miss: Dropped objects during lifting operations

A member has reported an incident in which pieces of angle bar slipped out of slings and fell into the sea. The incident occurred when the crew of a platform supply vessel used slings instead of a cargo basket, as the means to hoist a cargo of angle bar up to a rig.

A number of factors made this incident of particular concern to our member:

• No cargo baskets were available for this job – use of an approved cargo basket would have prevented this incident;
• The slings used were provided by a 3rd party contractor and were of uneven lengths, which caused the load to hang at an angle, and the bars to fall into the sea;
• No proper near miss report was made at the time of the incident:
  • The crane operator assumed that the incident would be reported by someone else and thus did not report the dropped object himself.
  • No report was made until 10 days after the incident. Our member noted the following:
• Where possible, cargo baskets should be used for pipes, metal bars and other objects that can easily fall out of slings;
• Crew should be reminded that when using slings or other lifting gear, care should be taken to select the appropriate equipment for the job at hand;
• All incidents and near misses should be reported, no matter if one believes that someone else has reported it, or how trivial the matter may seem.

Members should refer to the following IMCA documents, in particular the pocket safety cards which are intended for use by vessel crews:

• Guidelines for lifting operations
• Avoiding dropped objects (poster)
• Lifting equipment (pocket card)
• Avoiding dropped objects (pocket card)