TABLE OF CONTENTS In the following sections most attention is given to objects dropped from cranes, while the other hazards are dealt with in less detail.
Accident and incident experience may be used in order to illustrate the risk picture. If we start with dropped objects, the main characteristics in the North Sea are as follows:
Several fatalities have been caused when the entire crane has toppled over-board, but this was before 1990.
Equipment damage has been caused by falling load impact on the deck.
Subsea wellheads have been damaged especially as a result of BOPs falling during exploration drilling.
Crane accidents were quite frequent in the period 1975 85, with approximately one such accident per year in the North Sea. However, only one accident has occurred since 1985. This occurred in 1988, when the crane hook caught on a vessel due to heavy swells and the crane was dragged overboard. All of the fatal accidents have occurred in the British sector of the North Sea.
One somewhat special crane accident occurred on 3 December 1998 during installation of the production deck for the compliant tower platform on the Petronius field in the US Gulf of Mexico, in some 530 metres water depth, where one of the two deck modules for Texaco's Petronius project fell into the Gulf of Mexico during installation as it was being lifted into place by J. Ray McDermott's DB50 barge. The north module was hoisted by the DB50 into place on the compliant tower structure earlier...
