What happened? A crew person was checking the water tightness of the engine room’s emergency hatch cover. Safety lock pins, used to prevent the hatch cover from closing, were missing. […]
Safety Flashes
IMCA safety flashes disseminate important information on incidents and potential hazards and the lessons learnt from them that can help prevent incidents occurring elsewhere in the industry.
Individual safety events are available individually online, tagged and searchable, while the traditional PDF collections are also available for download.
Submit a Report
All members are encouraged to contribute relevant safety-related information – please visit our Safety Flash Reporting page for details on the submission process.
IMCA Contact
Nicholas Hough
Consultant - Safety and Security
Contact
Safety Events
Finger injury during lifting operations
What happened With a vessel alongside, crew were using the vessel crane to move a pallet of cylinders (part of the vessel’s hydraulic system) from one deck to another. This […]
Finger injury during shackle handling
What happened During a pennant wire spooling operation, the injured person was trying to remove a 35 tonne SWL shackle from the pennant eye. While trying to jiggle the shackle, […]
Hand and finger injuries
Given that the previous four events in this Safety Flash are all hand injuries, some of them quite serious, even shocking hand injuries, we pause to reflect for a moment, […]
Crew member in small boat slipped and dislocated shoulder
What happened A person was kneeling down in a workboat and was injured when the boat moved suddenly as a result of the sea state. The boat (a small workboat […]
Small boat crew exposed to FPSO process water discharge (fumes and aerosol)
What happened? During diving operations on a live FPSO, the deck crew on the Light Dive Craft (LDC) and Fast Rescue Craft (FRC) were exposed to fumes and aerosols from […]
LTI – crew person cracked shin bone
What happened An engineer suffered a broken shin when he slipped taking a shortcut into the engine room. He went into the engine room down some stairs, in order to […]
Person slipped on stairway while wearing shoe covers
What happened A person was making their way down a vessel staircase, wearing coveralls and safety boots with company approved shoe covers on. While descending the stairs, the person slipped […]
BSEE: Lack of training with hydraulic torque wrench contributes to fatality
What happened The United States Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) has published Safety Alert 459 relating to a fatality which occurred on a drillship in the Gulf of […]
Lifting chains parted – hydrogen embrittlement
What happened Three of four lifting chains on a load parted while the load was being lifted. The incident occurred in the last lift of sections of grillage from a […]
Davit hook failures
What happened A member reports two separate instances where a workboat davit hook, and life raft davit hook components, have failed. What went wrong Our member took the following actions: […]
Sheave became detached during lifting operations
What happened During recovery operations of marine geophysical sensors, a sheave parted from a swivel connection on the A-frame. The sheave fell approximately 6m to the deck below. No personnel […]
Near Miss: personnel transfer basket hit structure
What happened During a transfer of two personnel to a platform using the vessel crane, the base bumper of the personnel transfer basket came into contact with the helipad netting […]
BSEE: A warning on tagline entanglement
What happened The United States Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) has published Safety Alert 461 relating to recent tagline entanglements which have resulted in several High Potential near […]
MAIB: High pressure oil leak causes a fire in the engine room
The UK Marine Accident Investigation Branch has published Safety Digest 1/2023, consisting of lessons from recent Marine Accident Reports. IMCA has reviewed the digest and here passes on for members […]
MAIB: Gantry crane wire parted causing injury
A gantry crane hoist wire parted causing a load to drop, causing injury and damage to equipment. What happened Engineers were overhauling a large diesel generator, using the engine room’s […]
MAIB: A heavy sheave fell over causing an LTI
What happened A bosun suffered a broken leg when a heavy sheave he was trying to manoeuvre, fell against him. On a vessel going into port, crew were preparing to […]
MAIB: Who is in control?
What happened Control was lost of a vessel and it almost ran aground as a result. Fortunately, the crew were able to regain control before the vessel (a ferry) grounded, […]
MAIB: Lithium-ion battery fire
What happened water got into Lithium-ion batteries in equipment for use subsea, causing an explosion. Inspection of the equipment after a successful deployment identified a potential leak from one of […]
Hand injury while using manual torque tool
What happened? A deck engineer was torquing Grayloc clamp bolts connecting the gooseneck connector onto the second end of a flexible, using a manual torque wrench with a force multiplier […]
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