Technician detached from ladder fall arrest rail inside offshore wind turbine, no injury

During 2023 a technician became detached from the fall arrest rail while descending a fixed vertical ladder inside the tower of an offshore wind turbine in Europe. The technician regained balance, stopped the descent, secured themselves in a stable position and then investigated what had happened. There were no injuries. The event was published as an anonymised near miss case study by an offshore wind industry incident sharing scheme, which collects high potential events so that operators can learn from them.

The published case study states that the technician became detached from the safety rail during the descent. It does not give a specific cause for this event. As general context, industry material on climbing inside turbine towers describes several recognised detachment mechanisms: incompatibility between a fall arrest device and the rail where equipment from different manufacturers is combined without verified compatibility, errors in clipping or unclipping, equipment wear or damage, and the device leaving the rail at landing platform transitions. None of these has been attributed to this event by the source.

1. Verify compatibility between fall arrest devices and the specific ladder rail installed, at procurement and again whenever a device type is changed, rather than assuming that equipment from different manufacturers can be combined.
2. Train technicians to recognise a detachment immediately and to respond by stopping, securing themselves and investigating before continuing, which is the response recorded in this case.
3. Investigate high potential near misses, where the consequences could have been severe, to the same standard as events that caused injury.
4. Include a functional check of the fall arrest device and of its correct engagement on the rail in use as part of the pre climb routine.
5. Submit anonymised near miss reports to an industry sharing scheme and review incoming reports at toolbox talks, so that detachment modes seen elsewhere reach climbing teams.
6. For new or repowered installations, specify and verify fall protection design, device and rail compatibility and pre climb procedures at handover rather than assuming standard practice has been followed.

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