SAFETY
to protect workers at elevations higher than four feet in general industry workplaces and at any fall distance for work over dangerous equipment and machinery. OSHA standards state that
employers should guard every fl oor hole a worker might fall into; provide guard rails and toe boards around elevated, open-sided platforms; and for specifi c jobs, such as working on an aircraft that might rise 50-some feet in the air, fall protection equipment (which includes harnesses, safety lines, safety nets, stair railings, hand rails and more) must be in place. “29 CFR 1910, Subpart D, section 1910.28, requires an employer to provide some sort of fall protection any time an employee is working four feet or higher above the ground,” says Carl Cooper, aerospace specialist with Latchways, which provides fall protection products. Cooper, who has worked with
aviation on fall protection since the 1990s, continues that even though the standards exist, there is often a lack of oversight to ensure workers use the equipment being provided. And, often workers don’t want to be bothered with fall protection equipment, especially at lower heights. Even at higher elevations, they won’t take the proper precautions because the sentiment prevails that they’ve forgotten it before and nothing happened. Leduc, a 37-year aviation industry
veteran, says that technicians dish up plenty of excuses as to why they don’t wear it. “They say, ‘It’s uncomfortable and makes me feel restrained. I can’t work well with it. It’s only going to take me a few minutes and then I’ll be right back down. I’ve done it this way before and was OK,’” he says.
“An aircraft is a slick surface,” adds Cooper. “It’s not like working on a surface where there are treads and things to assist you so that you don’t slip. Aircraft, by nature, are smooth. They may be wet from being outside. And the area that a worker has available to stand may be limited.”
FALL PROTECTION EQUIPMENT Warding against falls begins with a risk assessment, including looking carefully at how workers are really performing the work. It requires MROs to put fall protection equipment in place, train workers on its use, and then monitor whether they are really using it, Cooper reports.
Adding the equipment requires operations to understand the two main types of fall protection equipment and when they should be used. Fall protection options include fall restraint systems, which prevent the fall from occurring in the fi rst place, and fall arrest systems, which stop a fall after it occurs. Examples of fall restraints can be found on the platforms, which workers stand on to reach the aircraft. These systems use barriers that basically create a fence around the platform to prevent a fall. The fall arrest approach, meanwhile, utilizes a fall protection harness or an anchorage system that can be suspended from an overhead structure in the aircraft hangar. The system could also be a part of a portable device on wheels that can be moved around an aircraft with anchorage points available for a harness-based system. There are three basic components to
a fall arrest, or personal fall protection system (PFPS): anchors, body support or body harness and a connecting device. All three items work together to keep the worker safe.
• Anchors off er a secure point of attachment, and can be permanent (i.e., installed in an area where a worker would regularly work) or temporary (i.e., installed in locations that workers might not go to very often for tasks of short duration). These anchors must support 5,000 pounds per worker attached as mandated by OSHA or the American National Standards Institute (ANSI).
• A full body harness distributes the force of the fall throughout the body and suspends the worker upright after the fall.
• Connecting devices connect the anchor to the harness and come in standard lanyards, shock- absorbing lanyards, retracting lifelines and rope grabs. These systems help lower a suspended worker to the ground after a fall. Which approach (fall arrest or
fall restraint) works best depends upon the situation. Users have more freedom of movement with a fall arrest system, says Cooper. “When they need a high degree of situational awareness, a fall arrest system gives them more freedom; a user can get closer to an edge that they could fall off of,” he says.
THE HUMAN FACTOR Good standards exist already, says Leduc, citing OSHA, the CSA and ANSI. “Everybody knows how to keep workers safe,” he says. But, he stresses, change management is needed to alter worker beliefs that it is OK, just this once, to go without fall protection. Cooper agrees, noting that he
sees several common missteps among maintenance technicians. “Complacency or over-confi dence is one,” he says. “That is having that mental thought that I’ve done it before so I’ll do it again, thus discounting
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DOMmagazine.com | aug 2017
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