Crane Basket at Nassco Is Smaller Than First Stated

Workers inside the loaded steel basket that carried six of 12 workers to their deaths in the worst shipyard accident ever at the National Steel & Shipbuilding Co. were in “extremely tight” quarters, one survivor of the accident said Thursday. Officials acknowledged that the personnel basket was considerably smaller than originally reported.

The 12 workers stood tightly packed in a basket that measured only 6-by-4 feet when the device plunged to the deck of a Navy ship undergoing repairs at the yard. On the day of the accident, Nassco officials described the basket’s size as 7-by-10 feet, almost three times its actual size.

Ford Pulley, a 37-year-old survivor of the July 10 accident, said, “We were in pretty tight quarters” when the 12 workers piled into the basket as it was lowered to a barge that was alongside the Navy supply ship Sacramento, which is being overhauled. The crowded conditions were further exacerbated by tools carried by some scaffold builders.

‘All Standing Up’

Though the workers were cramped inside the mesh basket, none was straddling the top of the basket’s sides, Pulley said. “It was extremely tight inside, but we were all standing up. Some of us my have been pushed against the sides, but everyone was inside,” he said.

Fred Hallett, Nassco vice president and spokesman, said Thursday that in the confusion immediately after the accident, company officials wrongly estimated the size of the personnel basket as 7-by-10 feet.

Hallett gave the basket’s actual dimensions as 53 by 74 inches, with sides 45 inches high. He said an accurate measurement was taken after a team of investigators from Nassco, the unions, Navy and OSHA began investigating the cause of the accident. The discrepancy, he said, came when company officials estimated but did not measure the size of the basket on the day of the accident.

In a related development, officials at the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration said Thursday they are considering reopening debate on whether the government safety agency should set standards to limit the number of workers who can be transported in baskets like the one involved.

Currently, there are no federal or state safety standards that regulate the number of persons that can be safely transported in a crane-lifted personnel basket. Cal-OSHA standards limit the weight of the basket and riders to 50% of the crane’s rated capacity. Pulley, a rigger who routinely works with cranes, said the cable carrying the basket was rated at 10 tons, which is well over the combined weight of the basket and the men inside.

Carry As Many as 15

Hallett said the steel basket involved in the accident could carry as many as 15 men and said that Nassco has no special safety rules to regulate the number of workers that can ride in such a basket.

“Basically, it’s how many people you can comfortably fit in . . . Weight is no problem because it falls well within the crane’s rated capacity,” Hallett said.

The accident, which took place minutes after midnight at the end of a shift, occurred when an electric-powered crane, commonly called a gantry, lifted the loaded personnel basket over the Navy ship. As the basket was being lowered to the pier, it bounced off a corner of the Sacramento and crashed to one of the decks, killing six and injuring six others.

On Thursday, a safety engineer at the recently disbanded Cal-OSHA, said state law required the workers in the basket to be secured with a safety line. Quoting from the California General Industry Safety Orders, Lloyd Albright said that workers transported in a personnel basket that is moved by a crane are required to be “secured by a safety belt and line” to the basket.

Richard Stephens, a Cal-OSHA spokesman, said that use of personnel baskets “is not a preferred method from a safety point of view.” Stephens said that use of the baskets is not illegal but that Cal-OSHA encouraged companies to limit their use to “unusual site conditions.”

On Thursday, Hallett said he would have to talk to the company’s safety specialist before commenting on Albright’s statement that the workers should have been using a safety line. But he said that the nature of shipyard work often requires the use of personnel baskets.

As an example, Hallett said that on the night of the accident, a personnel basket was necessary to transport the men because they were on a barge securing the Navy ship to a pier.

“Personnel baskets are used under appropriate conditions at most shipyards. In this instance, the ship (Sacramento) was being secured. Since the ship was not secured, there was no way that the men could’ve gone from the berthing barge to the main ship and to the pier,” Hallett said.

Nassco officials have frequently discussed ways to make the baskets safer, he added.

“But we always come up with different circumstances that make us rethink the recommendations to improve the baskets. For example, someone once suggested putting a cover over the baskets. But then we asked, ‘What happens if it falls into the bay. Will the men be able to get out?’ ”

Meanwhile, Ted Twardowski, a safety and health specialist with OSHA, said federal officials in Washington are closely monitoring the investigation. He said OSHA officials are considering conducting a new study into personnel basket safety with the objective of generating federal safety standards for the baskets.

According to Twardowski, OSHA is expected to announce safety standards for personnel baskets used in the construction industry within six months. However, shipyards fall under different standards.

A few years ago, OSHA attempted to solicit input from unions and shipyards across the country in an attempt to see whether safety standards were needed to regulate the use of personnel baskets in shipyards, Twardowski said.

“Questions were addressed over this issue, but the response was limited. There really wasn’t enough information then to work with, but this may change now,” he said.