Yesterday’s dramatic rescue of 159 people from a blazing oil platform in the North Sea has prompted an investigation into its safety procedures.
The fire on Thistle Alpha, which has been operating since the 1970s, started in the turbine section and comes less than a week after an HSE inspection of the offshore industry’s oil and gas installations found the overall state of more than half the platforms to be poor.
It has since emerged that the platform has been the subject of numerous enforcement notices served by the HSE, one of which highlighted safety problems with the rig’s turbine.
Thankfully, there were no casualties, probably thanks to the heroic efforts of rescue workers. But why has it taken a disaster such as yesterday’s, for the safety problems to be investigated? It seems that to get something done, they have waited until a major incident happens before we all stand up and take note and start to do something about it. That simply isn’t acceptable and I am sure many health and safety professionals will agree.
Apparently the evacuation procedures worked like clockwork but surely they didn’t adhere to their risk assessment if the problem had been previously noted but not fixed? The HSE has launched an investigation so we’ll have to wait and see if anyone is prosecuted for the failures.
Do you work in the North Sea’s offshore industry? Post a comment and give your opinion.
To return to HealthandSafetyProfessional.co.uk click here.
