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The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) have issued a safety notice regarding the unplanned retraction of motion compensated gangways typically used in the offshore industry.
It is aimed at offshore installation duty holders and vessel owners or operators of offshore vessels, as well as windfarm operators, principal contractors, and contractors.
There have been incidents where failure or error of a motion compensated gangway (MCG) power or control system has resulted in the gangway retracting without warning to the operator or persons crossing the gangway. These incidents pose a serious risk to operators and users of these gangways. The absence of a warning that a gangway is about to retract can cause people to:
For the purposes of this safety notice, the HSE have stated that a warning in this event is 'advanced notice that a potentially dangerous event is about to occur. The purpose of the warning is to enable persons to make themselves safe before the event occurs. Audible and/or visual alarms that are triggered at the same time the gangway retracts are not considered to provide adequate warning.'
Operators, duty holders and vessel owners or operators should ensure that any gangway auto-retraction function provides suitable audible and visible warnings which allow users sufficient time to make themselves safe before the auto-retraction function activates.
The HSE have advised that oil and gas and renewable energy duty holders should review gangway arrangements to identify any gangways that do not provide sufficient warning prior to auto-retraction. Any gangway that can retract without sufficient warning should not be used until suitable controls and additional risk reduction measures are in place.
Duty holders must review gangway design, including the testing of all automatic functions. They should carry out a suitable and sufficient technical risk assessment to understand all operational states of the control system under which the gangway may auto-retract, including that the control system will only result in auto-retraction if personnel are not at risk.
There should be a rigorous risk assessment of the use of gangway operators to override auto-retractions.
For more information, see:
