Inspection Detail

Inspection: 300756921 - Savage Pacific Services Corp

Inspection Information - Office: Long Beach District Office

Investigation Summary

At 11:00 a.m. on November 9, 1998, Employees #1 and #2 were replacing the V-belts on the hoisting apparatus of a radial stacker, which had been shut down the night before because it was making a chattering noise when in use. As they replaced the V-belt, the hoisting rope failed, dropping the conveyor. The A-frame fell on top of the conveyor, crushing both workers. Employee #2 was killed and Employee #1 was paralyzed from the waist down. Why the rope broke at that particular moment could not be determined. However, a sheave in one of the blocks had failed and broken into pieces, whereupon the wire rope was severed by the pin that had held the failed sheave. At the time of the failure, the condition of the wire rope and sheave were unknown. The radial stacker at the marine terminal was designed and fabricated by Greystone, Inc. The radial stacker was the last of a series of conveyors used to unload trucks of petroleum coke. It consisted of a 200 ft long covered belt conveyor resting on a truss. While the feed end of the radial stacker was fixed, most of the truss and belt conveyor were suspended through the legs of an A-frame by one continuous wire rope going through a series of sheaves and pulleys. The A-frame rode on wheels, allowing the discharge end of the radial stacker to travel in a semicircle. The unloaded coke thus formed a semicircular pile on the ground. The radial stacker had been in service at this facility for ten months.

Keywords: MAINTENANCE, PARALYSIS, HOISTING MECHANISM, STACKER CRANE, WIRE ROPE, COLLAPSE, BROKEN CABLE, EQUIPMENT FAILURE, CRUSHED, MECH MAT HANDLING