Jurong Shipyard has been fined SGD 230,000 following an accident which claimed the lives of two workers in October 2011, local media cited Singapore’s Ministry of Manpower (MOM).
The workers had been working in the basket of a cherry picker when its boom bent and fell 30 meters onto the floor on October 29, 2011. They were carrying out grit-blasting work at the front of a vessel docked at Jurong Shipyard at the time of the accident.
Ministry of Manpower (MOM) informed that the cherry picker completed an 18-month overhaul maintenance some three months before the accident. Corrosion was found on all the four boom sections and basket, and blasting and painting were carried out over the affected areas to rectify the problems.
According to MOM, the manufacturer’s guidelines suggest that the second boom should have been replaced, but it was not. Additionally, Jurong Shipyard failed to conduct comprehensive checks on all the boom sections after the overhaul maintenance.
In November 2017, the shipbuiler was hit with an SGD 400,000 fine for failing to ensure the safety and health of employees related to the incident with Noble Regina Allen, an oil rig under construction. A large number of workers suffered injuries, with 89 workers sent to various hospitals for treatment, when the oil rig tilted during testing of the jack-up system in December 2012.