Worker injured as GE wind turbine collapses in Maranhao, Brazil

A GE 2.72-116 wind turbine collapsed at Omega Energia's Delta VI wind project in Maranhao, north-east Brazil, on 3 September 2019. Three GE employees were on site at the time of the collapse and one worker was injured, receiving medical treatment afterwards. GE Renewable Energy confirmed the incident and said it was working to determine the root cause. The collapse was the fifth involving GE turbines that year, following earlier collapses in New Mexico, Oklahoma, Nebraska and another site in Pernambuco, Brazil. No injuries had been reported in the previous four incidents. GE stated it was too early to speculate on the cause of this latest collapse but said teams were in place to investigate and resolve the issue, drawing on lessons from the earlier failures, to ensure safe and reliable turbine operation across its fleet.

The incident followed a pattern of four earlier GE turbine collapses in 2019, most involving the manufacturer's 2MW platform, though a specific root cause for the Brazil collapse had not been confirmed at the time of reporting.

1. Operators and manufacturers should treat repeated structural failures across a turbine platform as a signal for fleet-wide investigation rather than isolated events.
2. Root cause analysis should be prioritised and shared transparently when multiple similar failures occur within a short period.
3. Site access and personnel exclusion protocols near turbines should account for elevated structural failure risk when a platform has a recent history of collapses.

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