Jurong Shipyard Pte Ltd fined for dangerous workplace which resulted in fatal accident

1. Jurong Shipyard Pte. Ltd. was fined $230,000 under the Workplace Safety and Health Act for a fatal incident at 5 Jalan Samulun where a worker was struck and caught between a gantry crane and a manifold.
2. Jurong Shipyard Pte Ltd had pleaded guilty to an offence of failing to take reasonably practicable measures to ensure that its workplace was safe.
   
   Case Details
3. On 20 Mar 2015, Yeo Chye Mong Stephen (“the Deceased”), who was employed as a safety coordinator and patrol man by Foo Ngan Marine Pte Ltd (‘Foo Ngan’), a subcontractor of Jurong Shipyard Pte. Ltd., was conducting safety checks near the manifolds located along the track of a gantry crane which was in operation, lifting pieces of rolled up welding cables (see Annex A for photographs of the manifold and gantry crane track). Shortly after, a co-worker found the Deceased lying on the ground between a utility water supply manifold and the gantry crane’s track. He was conveyed to the hospital but later succumbed to his injuries on the same day.
   
   MOM’s Investigation Findings
4. Investigations revealed that there was a systemic failure in how Jurong Shipyard Pte. Ltd. performed the lifting operation using the gantry crane. These failures made the workplace dangerous, and also resulted in the accident, which led to the death of the Deceased. The failures include:
   
   a) Failing to appoint a banksman to ensure that the travelling path of the gantry crane along the track was free from persons within the lifting zone when it is in operation.
   b) Failing to ensure that there were sufficient visual warning signs to inform persons, apart from the members of the lifting team, to keep out of the lifting zone while the lifting operations was in progress.
   c) Failing to ensure that there was sufficient passageway clearance between the gantry crane track and the utility water supply manifold. The clearance distance was found to be only 430mm, which was less than the 750mm recommended in the Singapore Standard SS 497:2011 Code of Practice. In fact, the measured distance was only 80mm when the leg of the gantry crane moved past the utility water supply manifold along its track.
5. Mr Sebastian Tan, MOM’s Director of Occupational Safety and Health Inspectorate, said, “There were several safety lapses that were not addressed in this case. The width of the passageway for the gantry crane fell short of established safety standards as set out in the Code of Practice. Inadequacy in the risk assessment resulted in the lack of control measures to monitor and coordinate the safe movement of workers during lifting operations involving the gantry crane. The company could have taken simple measures such as the deployment of banksman or warning signs to prevent the accident but it did not. A worker unfortunately paid the price with his life.”