Company fined $200K after Forrestfield Airport Link Project explosion

Salini Australia Pty Ltd, a subcontractor on the Forrestfield Airport Link Project, has been fined $200,000 and ordered to pay $2847.50 in costs, over serious injuries suffered by a worker in July 2018. The subcontractor pleaded guilty in October 2021 to failing to provide and maintain a safe working environment and, by that failure, causing serious harm to an employee, facing a maximum fine of $400,000.

The incident occurred on 7 July 2018, when three Salini employees were engaged in connecting steel pipes in an underground tunnel near the Airport Central Station platform. The workers heard a loud explosion as a six-inch flexible rubber hose in the work area, containing high-pressure compressed air, detached from a steel pipe, resulting in unrestrained whiplash motion of the hose. A member of the crew was struck in the face by the whipping hose, causing him to be knocked unconscious and inflicting serious injuries, including a traumatic brain injury, severe facial fractures and lacerations, a fractured right hand and an eye injury.

The worker initially underwent nine hours of surgery and was then placed in an induced coma for 11 days. He has since undergone extensive medical treatment and intervention, including further facial surgeries, dental surgeries, plastic surgery, occupational therapy and physiotherapy. WorkSafe WA Commissioner Darren Kavanagh said the risks associated with hoses containing high-pressure air had been identified by Salini and were documented in several areas, including the safe work method statement for the tunnel-boring machine. Kavanagh added that the subcontractor’s documents stated that all high-pressure hoses were to be fitted with whip checks to avoid what happened in this incident.

“Although a control measure to mitigate the risk had clearly been identified and documented, nobody at Salini directed this control measure to be implemented or checked whether it was in place,” said Kavanagh. The company was convicted of a similar charge in October 2020 and fined $150,000 after a worker suffered major electrical burns when a crane touched or came too close to high-voltage power lines. In this latest case, Salini failed to ensure that the control measures identified in its safety documents were followed, and did not ensure that the six-inch rubber hose containing high-pressure compressed air was appropriately secured.

“The tunnel workers who installed the unrestrained flexible rubber hose the night before this incident were not instructed to install whip checks. Unfortunately I regularly see instances where a safe work method statement or job safety analysis has not been implemented as written, and the consequence is that a worker is seriously injured. It is important that workplaces develop safe work documentation, but it is even more important that they ensure the work is carried out in accordance with those procedures,” said Kavanagh.

Following the incident, Salini installed whip checks on a number of pipes and replaced a number of flexible rubber hoses with rigid pipes.

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