Worker dies after fall from turbine at Whitelee windfarm near Glasgow

What happened

A 32 year old man fell to his death from a turbine at Whitelee Windfarm near Eaglesham, East Renfrewshire, Scotland. The incident occurred on a Wednesday in late March 2017 while the turbine involved was reportedly undergoing maintenance, although the maintenance activity was not said to be connected to the fall. Emergency services attended and the man was pronounced dead at the scene. Police Scotland confirmed the death was not being treated as suspicious and a report would be sent to the Procurator Fiscal.

The site owner, ScottishPower, confirmed an incident had occurred and offered condolences. The incident followed a separate fatal accident at ScottishPower's Kilgallioch Windfarm in South Ayrshire two weeks earlier, in which a contractor working for a turbine manufacturer died after falling inside an under construction turbine.

Contributing factors

Not reported in detail; the source states the turbine was undergoing maintenance at the time but that this was not connected to the fall.

Lessons learned

1. Fall protection on wind turbines must be enforced at all times, not only during active maintenance tasks.
2. Operators must prepare for rapid police and regulator notification after any height incident at an operational site.
3. Repeat fatal falls at sites owned by the same operator require immediate review of access and contractor controls.

More lessons on electrical protection and isolation, emergency response and public communication, worker safety and safe systems of work, from every incident on the register.

Not yet known

• Exact cause of the fall
• Turbine model and age
• Duration of any resulting downtime
• Cost of the incident

This entry is updated when these are reported. Get an alert for the next one like it.

Source

Daily Record (dailyrecord.co.uk)