In Tunisia, on the 10th May, Oil and Gas Company declared a man/vehicle lost situation in their area of operations, South Tunisia.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE INCIDENTS
Circumstances Before:
• On 9th May, One vehicle with a driver and two passengers went to perform routine work taking measurements on a pipeline, after which they were to return to their base. With increasingly bad weather, sandstorms with low visibility, for their return they decided to take a different track to the one they primarily utilized, they then became totally disorientated and lost the track they were travelling on.
Circumstances :
Two of the personnel left the vehicle to go to a high spot (sand dune) by foot to try to spot other tracks, lights or vehicles. At this stage the two personnel have become separated in the sand storm, one has
tried to contact the other without success, he then returned to the vehicle and waiting driver. Being unable to contact anyone due to no radio or mobile phone coverage, they remain at location with the vehicle.
On the 10th May, the Oil and Gas Company organised a search with the assistance of the army and army military helicopters, the search located the lost vehicle and its two occupants, the occupants although physically ok, were suffering from shock at the loss of their colleague. Searches continued for the rest of the day and following day to try to locate the man lost. On the 12th May, search crews
encountered CGGV crews working in the area, CGGV management were made aware of the man lost situation. CGGV mobilized 5 vehicles with 9 personnel to aid in the search for the man lost.
On 13th May, CGGV were informed that the man lost had been located but tragically was dead when located. The deceased was found almost 60 kilometres from the point were he was last seen by his colleagues, he had been without water, food or survival equipment.
WHAT WENT WRONG:
♦ Disregard of HSE rules concerning “Man/Vehicle lost procedure” (standard in our industry).
Always remain with your vehicle in case of breakdown or being lost
♦ Disregard of Journey Management
♦ Disregard of training / Instruction
CORRECTIVE ACTIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS:
♦ Refresher training / instruction: personnel at all levels to be reinstructed on “man/vehicle lost” procedure, all
personnel to be made aware of this unfortunate man lost incident
♦ Behaviour training: behaviour properly monitored, training on understanding effects of poor behaviour.
♦ Communications: Ensure personnel have communications when working in remote locations, sat phone,
radios, mobile phone etc…
♦ Equipment: To have survival kits and sufficient food water with all teams working in remote locations
♦ Management commitment: To ensure systems are in place to monitor the behaviour of the workforce.
Initiate systems, where correct and good behaviour is recognised and rewarded.
WE CAN ONLY AVOID INCIDENTS BY CHANGING OUR BEHAVIOUR, IT ALL STARTS WITH YOU.
This is was an open letter send by CGG Veritas to all the oil business companies, a tragedy happened a couple of days ago leading to a death of a stuff lost in a sand storm somewhere in Al Borma area.
