Safety Alert: Non-injurious Incident During Pilot Disembarkation

 

ICHCA International is committed to helping industry to learn lessons fast, learn them once and make sure that they stay learnt.  This information is intended to provide all organisations in the cargo supply chain with the opportunity to consider the events and to review and adapt their own health and safety control measures to proactively prevent future incidents.

This alert, kindly provided by the Port of Tyne and PSS, addresses the initial findings of an incident where pilot ladder securing on a vessel failed.  Luckily, nobody was injured in this instance but it spotlights the vital importance of effectively managing the risks associated with pilot transfer.

The vessel’s crew had made fast the pilot ladder and lowered the access gangway.  However it was not possible to secure the gangway to the vessel’s side and the crew moved the pilot ladder further aft to ensure space and sufficient available securing points for the gangway.  Both ladder and gangway were then secured to the vessels side.  During the pilot’s disembarkation approximately halfway down the ladder, the lashings securing the ladder to the vessels side parted and it came away.  The pilot successfully made it to the bottom assisted by the pilot vessel deckhand and was uninjured.

 

For full details click here

 

Supporting Learning Materials:

ICHCA member Associated British Ports has produced a poster of Pilot Boarding Arrangement Requirements Best Practice.  The poster is co-badged by the UK Maritime Coastguard Agency, UK Harbour Masters Association and UK Maritime Pilots Association and is freely available to download from: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1088053/Printable_PDF_version_of_ABP_poster_describing_best_practice_when_rigging_pilot_ladder.pdf

 

Please click here for previous Safety Alerts: https://ichca.com/safety-alerts

 

We are grateful to Port of Tyne and PSS for providing details.  We acknowledge their commitment to sharing learning to benefit others.  If you have similar operations, please share this information with managers, operatives and any potentially affected third parties as appropriate.  Please also review any of your relevant operations for similar hazardous conditions, risks, and controls.  Learning content like this is highly valuable as it is based on real-world experience.  We encourage everyone with publishable information about incidents to send it to us, so that we can raise awareness across the whole industry.  Please contact us at secretariat@ichca.com; sharing your insight could save a life or prevent injury.