Are you effectively investigating the cause of every incident or component failure?
Australian SLP Inspection Location,
I bring to your attention a couple of issues that have been raised with us at SLP and we in turn are sharing this information as a way of raising your awareness to problems that can hopefully be avoided or lessened in the future.
Incident One:
Consecutive overfill protection probe activations on a tanker after repairs;
- Tanker overfill protection probe was activated before reaching the pre-set loading level and under SFL level during loading ULP.
- Tanker was inspected by third party maintenance contractor who tested/adjusted probe height and completed return to service paperwork.
- Tanker returned to site and the high level probe was again activated before reaching the pre-set loading level and under SFL level during loading ULP.
- Tanker was again inspected by third party maintenance contractor who tested/adjusted probe height and completed return to service paperwork.
- Tanker returned to site and the high level probe was activated for a third consecutive time before reaching the pre-set loading level and under SFL level during loading ULP.
- Tanker was inspected by third party maintenance contractor – it was then determined that the compartment had been incorrectly calibrated.
As an Inspection location how do you assure yourself that the tanker and its compartments are correctly calibrated, what information can you obtain for the manufacture or owner to assist you in making the correct call when you are requested to set an over protection probe hight? In this case we are very lucky the overfill protection probe did its job and prevented the loading system from potentially overfilling the compartment leading to loss of containment and then on to worst case scenario of explosion/fire/injury or loss of life.
OS10 Road Tanker – Overfill Protection Standard
Incident Two:
Reoccurring Leak;
- Leak found on pipework from compartment to tanker manifold after loading at Terminal.
- Tanker inspected by third party maintenance contractor who repaired leak and returned tanker to service.
- Within 3 months the leak reoccurred after loading at Terminal.
- Tanker again inspected by third party maintenance contractor – repair was completed and tanker returned to service.
In this incident the repairers ability to adequately conduct quality repairs has been questioned? I must ask that at all times repairers understand the risk of cargo component failure and the seriousness of the potential outcome, I am not suggesting that in this incident that poor workmanship contributed to the second failure, but I do ask that you don’t let your repairs become a potential disaster due to poor quality work or a failure to fully investigate the reasoning behind the initial failure.
Please consider this information as an opportunity for learning and share with your staff .
Should you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact me.
Lee Stringer SLP Manager
