Frayed rope caused fatal crane fall

Prosecutions and Claims |
15.10.2007

A Cornish court has ordered an Italian shipping group to pay £100,000 in fines and costs for poor equipment maintenance that led to a worker
suffering a fatal fall.

Able seaman Aniello D'Urzo was suspended in a bosun's chair painting a crane on the cargo vessel Republica Di Roma in dry dock when the rope holding the chair broke, plunging him to the deck 12m below. He later died of his injuries.

HSE inspector Barry Trudgian told HSW the rope was worn and weakened by exposure to untraviolet light. There was also a possibility that on the day, the wind had made the chair swing, further fraying the rope when it rubbed against a weld on a handrail.

Trudgian said the accident was a result of several failings: there was no maintenance record for the suspension equipment (though six-monthly inspections for such access equipment would be expected) and the ship's chief mate, who was supervising the painting, had not checked any of it. "The permit for work was also not specific for working aloft," he added, "and was rather rudimentary."

Sentencing D'Urzo's employer at Truro Crown Court on 20 September, Judge Rucker noted that the able seaman bore some responsibility for ignoring the wear to the equipment and for removing his safety line shortly before the accident. But he also observed that he wouldn't have relied on the line - two pieces of rope knotted together - "to tie his dog up".

Industria Armamento Meridionale SpA of Palermo, Italy, trading as the Grimaldi Group, was fined £75,000 and ordered to pay costs of £25,000 after pleading guilty to breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act for failing to protect D'Urzo.