High potential dropped object near miss: Steel ferrule failure
- Safety Flash
- Published on 25 October 2017
- Generated on 19 September 2025
- IMCA SF 27/17
- 2 minute read
A winch wire failed causing a pennant assembly and wire to fall directly into a crane basket. There were no injuries.
What happened?
The incident occurred whilst operating a forward utility or ‘tugger’ hoist. Weight was taken by the winch to support a 1.5t basket, to assist the crane in removing the basket from the drill floor.
The winch wire was under tension and the load was 5 cm above the deck, when the winch wire failed sending the pennant assembly and wire directly down into the basket itself and finally coming to rest on the forward winch.
What went wrong? What were the causes?
The 20mm steel wire rope was pulled out of its Flemish eye termination due to a failure of the ferrule.
The Marine Safety Forum (MSF) member reporting the incident considered that the incident had the potential to have been a fatality or to have caused multiple major injuries.
What lessons were learned? What actions were taken?
Steel wire ropes should be checked for the correct crimping of the ferrule.
Care should be taken to ensure that the ferrule shape is correct and the condition is good. In the case of 20mm steel ferrules, the 20mm steel ferrule when pressed should have been round and not hexagonal.
Any 20mm steel wire ropes not meeting that criterion should be removed from service.
correctly pressed 20mm steel ferrule
incorrectly pressed 20mm steel ferrule
Note: Other rope sizes and ropes from other suppliers may have hexagonal ferrules and should be inspected.
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