Fatality following a fall from a wind turbine
- Safety Flash
- Published on 16 April 2025
- Generated on 2 May 2025
- IMCA SF 07/25
- 3 minute read
The Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service, along with the UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE), has published a response to a fatal incident in which a crew member fell to their death from a yaw deck on a wind farm.
The Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service response is available here.
Antonio Joao Da Silva Linares died on March 15, 2017, after falling five metres onto the elevator deck of the turbine from the top of a wind turbine at the Kilgallioch Wind Farm in Scotland. He suffered severe head and chest injuries which proved fatal.
The Fatal Accident Inquiry found that the otherwise “diligent” worker had not attached his harness to a fall arrest system, which would have prevented his death.
Recommendations
The recommendations made were as follows:
- There should be joint health and safety drills/exercises on windfarms in construction involving the principal contractor(s) and all relevant subcontractors (those working on the construction of the turbines at any stage) which focus on a rescue from height.
Duty holders should ensure suitable arrangements for rescue from height are considered at the design stage of the project, and in place from the very start of the construction phase, and that these are tested and rehearsed at frequent intervals throughout the lifecycle of the wind farm to ensure that everyone who may have a role in responding to any incident has had an opportunity to take part in an exercise. - There should be basket stretchers or spinal boards which are able to be used to keep a casualty as horizontal as possible without undue pressure on the chest area during a rescue from height, either in every wind turbine (both operational and under construction) or very close by on site.
Duty holders should review their stretcher arrangements and may need to consider whether improvements or modifications could be required to meet this recommendation. Please refer to the FAI determination for more information on the very serious difficulties encountered during the rescue. - The wind turbine industry should further consider whether technology to identify when a person has disconnected from a fall arrest system could be utilised so as to provide an audible or visual warning to other colleagues working in the vicinity.
Duty holders must review their arrangements to prevent falls, including for personnel who are:
- moving to and from the yaw deck.
- moving to and from the nacelle.
- transferring onto or from a fall arrest system to any platform.
It is HSE’s view that possible technological improvements should be considered by the industry in a collaborative manner, to make best use of emerging technologies and innovative solutions. Interlocks on gates and/or fall arrest systems; ergonomic improvements to assist safe transfer between systems/anchor points; or any added benefit from an alarm system should be included in these considerations.
HSE is requesting assistance from stakeholder groups to coordinate industry actions in response to this third recommendation.
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