A New Zealand stevedoring company has been fined NZD 240,000 ($158,000) after a 15-tonne excavator was dropped from a ship’s crane, narrowly missing five workers on the wharf below.

Tauranga-based C3 Limited pleaded guilty to one charge under the Health and Safety at Work Act of exposing people to risk of death or serious injury (section 48).

The incident happened in 2017 at Northport in Whangarei when a log carrier was being loaded on 16 July.

Excavators are often loaded onto log carriers to help move and stack logs in the holds.

In this case, loading had been completed and one of the ship’s cranes was being used to unload the excavator onto the wharf.

“As loading the logs had finished, the excavator’s driver had left the worksite. However, he had not correctly positioned the excavator’s boom so it could be safely lifted by the crane,” said Maritime New Zealand (Maritime NZ).

“When the excavator was lifted the load was unbalanced. It should have been level but the back of the excavator was higher than the front.”

An exclusion zone had reportedly been set up when the vessel was being loaded with logs but was no longer in place when the excavator was being unloaded.

The incident happened because C3 did not adequately train some of its stevedores for working around cranes

Maritime New Zealand

“From where he stood by the ship’s crane, the C3 employee supervising the lift could not see the part of the wharf where the excavator would be unloaded,” said Maritime NZ.

“Later, during Maritime NZ’s investigation, he said he did not feel qualified or trained for the work he was doing.”

Another C3 employee was on the wharf where the excavator would be unloaded. He was a trainee who had taken off his radio. Neither of the two men could communicate with each other.

Meanwhile, four workers from a company providing biosecurity treatment for the logs and a welder doing repairs on the side of the ship were in the drop zone, where the excavator would fall if the lift failed.

“None of the five were warned that the excavator was about to be lifted and there were no controls to ensure that they, or anyone else, was clear of the drop zone,” said Maritime NZ.

“Seconds later the excavator fell off the crane and crashed down where the five workers had been.”

Neil Rowarth, Maritime NZ northern regional compliance manager, said the five workers were almost certainly “seconds away” from being killed.

“The incident happened because C3 did not adequately train some of its stevedores for working around cranes,” he said.

“They did not clear the drop zone below the crane and allowed the excavator to be loaded incorrectly onto the crane.”

This is the second New Zealand stevedore company to be taken to task for alleged unsafe working practices in as many weeks.

Maritime NZ recently charged ISO Limited, under the Health and Safety at Work Act (HSWA), after one of its employees fell from a ship in the Port of Tauranga.

“The action against ISO has been resolved by Maritime NZ agreeing to an enforceable undertaking with ISO to make significant investments into various programmes aimed at improving health and safety for stevedores at work,” Maritime NZ said.

Details of the enforceable undertaking will be “released soon”, it added.