Near-miss incident involving insecure load

A member has reported the following incident which occurred on one of its vessels. A deck crew had picked up a pallet of rollers from the aft deck and was moving them to the designated storage area, above the welding fabrication shop. Whilst slewing the crane into the storage area, one of the pallet chains struck the crane boom rest, resulting in the rollers falling from the pallet. The rollers fell to ‘D’ deck level and one roller fell to the main deck level, just outside the fabrication shop area.

The pallet contained six rollers, each weighing approximately 80kg. The weather conditions at the time were a wind speed of 28-30 knots, with 2-2.5 metre sea swell.

Nobody was injured and no equipment was damaged.

The pictures show the result of the incident.

The member involved has proposed the following corrective action:

• When using cranes to move loads on pallets, the load must be checked to ensure that it is banded or strapped. If not, the load must be made secure by other means, or the loads should be split and lifted separately, using webbing or steel slings.
• The area where the loads are to be lifted to is to be barriered off, with a crew member present to prevent unauthorised entry to the lifting area. Signs are to be posted in the relevant area, warning of overhead crane operations.