The widow of an Airbus employee who was crushed between a tractor and a fertiliser spreader at the firm’s plant has criticised the £200,000 fine.
An HSE investigation into the incident found that Donny Williams, 62, and his co-workers had received no training on how to work on the equipment when the incident happened 16 November.
Airbus was also ordered to pay £58,891 in costs, but Sheila Williams said the fine and bad publicity did not “amount to much in exchange for a man’s life.”
Mold Crown Court heard that Mr Williams worked in the maintenance department, securing the fleet of vehicles used by Airbus at the site. He was asked to fit a fertiliser spreader to the back of a tractor as part of a trial to spread granular de-icer onto the plant’s runway.
Mr Williams asked a colleague to help him with this job by starting the tractor and pulling a lever in the tractor cab. As the other worker did this, he heard Mr Williams shout and turned to see him trapped between the tractor’s rear tyre and the spreader.
Mr William’s suffered a fractured skull and was taken to the Countess of Chester Hospital where he died.
The HSE investigation found that fitters in the department had received no training for driving, maintaining, or attaching equipment to tractors and lacked understanding of tractor controls.
The company did not have a safe system of work in place for attaching equipment to tractors and no risk assessment for the job had been carried out by the company.
Additionally, none of the fitters knew of the existence of an operator’s manual for the tractor and none of them were familiar with the controls. Instead they used a “trial and error” approach to find the right operations.
Prosecutor Simon Parrington told the court that the accident was “entirely avoidable”.
Airbus Operations Ltd of Aerospace Avenue, Filton, Bristol, was fined £200,000 and ordered to pay costs of £58,891 in costs after pleading guilty to breaching section 2(1) of the HSWA 1974.
Defending barrister Richard Matthews QC, said Airbus was a world leader in health and safety but tragically the work of maintaining non-aircraft building items had at that time been outside the main works operation.
Mrs Williams added: “Losing Donny has created a cavernous hole in my life which is just impossible to fill. No-one expects to go to work and not return home again and this should never happen.
“I am unconvinced that the current punishment is a sufficient deterrent for companies.”
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I couldn’t agree more with Mrs Williams.
This company is a multi-billion £ organisation and this fine represents a derisory proportion of its turnover/profits
It’s shameful and shocking and will not be noticeable, unfortunately, to the company’s shareholders.
One can only hope that she will receive reasonable compensation damages to secure the rest of her life. Punitive damages too would provide some motivation for shareholder pressures on the management, as if!
Modern agricultural tractors- far away from those of 50 years ago, twice as fast, ten times the weight and power of an old “grey fergy”.
This machine was apparently used for an Airside, not Agricultural, operation
Let’s hope HSE review the need for mandatory training and certification of these complex, specialist machines-try getting a job on a Fork Lift truck without!
The excellent HSG185 , “Tractor Action” should be in all cabs & required reading for all operators,Line and H&S managers .