• Power failures and control errors cause gangways to retract without warning, risking fatal falls
• Oil and gas operators to review gangway systems or stop operations
• Safety measures required before workers can safely use motion compensated gangways

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has issued a safety notice today (8 August) to highlight the risks of potentially fatal gangway accidents to offshore workers.

Serious risks have been identified where motion compensated gangways retract without warning due to power failures or control system errors. This puts workers at risk of falling from height, being struck by moving parts, or suffering serious injuries including death.

HSE is calling on operators in oil and gas, and renewable energy sectors to review their gangway arrangements. Any gangways that cannot provide sufficient warning before automatic retraction must be taken out of service until proper safety controls are installed.

Howard Harte, Operations Manager (Offshore Regulation) at the Health and Safety Executive, said: “Despite a previous safety alert in 2024, and the publication of industry good practice, we have become aware that gangways that provide insufficient warning before auto-retraction are still being used in the offshore oil and gas and renewables industry.

“This safety notice addresses continuing incidents where gangway failures have resulted in unexpected retraction without adequate warning to operators or personnel crossing between platforms. Workers have been left unable to move to safety or brace for sudden movement when systems fail.”

Under the requirements, dutyholders must conduct technical risk assessments of all automatic gangway functions. Control systems must only allow auto-retraction when personnel are confirmed safe. The use of gangway operators to manually override automatic retractions requires rigorous risk assessment.

The HSE emphasises that adequate warning systems must provide advance notice before dangerous events occur.

Howard added: “A warning by definition is advanced notice that a potentially dangerous event is about to occur. The purpose of the warning is to enable persons to make themselves safe before the event occurs. Audible and/or visual alarms that are triggered at the same time the gangway retracts are not considered to provide adequate warning to enable workers to reach safety.”

Dutyholders must review their gangway design, including the testing that has been carried out of all automatic functions. They should carry out a suitable and sufficient technical risk assessment to understand all operational states of the control system under which the gangway may auto-retract, including that the control system will only result in auto-retraction if personnel are not at risk. Use of gangway operators to override auto-retractions should be rigorously risk assessed.

The safety notice can be viewed at: https://www.hse.gov.uk/safetybulletins/motion-compensated-gangways-auto-retraction.htm

Further guidance on offshore health and safety law, risk assessment and equipment safety is available on the HSE website:

• Offshore health and safety law
• Managing risks and risk assessment at work
• Equipment and machinery safety

Further information:

1. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is Britain’s national regulator for workplace health and safety. We are dedicated to protecting people and places, and helping everyone lead safer and healthier lives.
2. HSE issued a previous safety notice relating to the risk of serious injury from motion compensated gangways in 2024 – HSE Safety Notice ED02-2024 Risk of serious injury from motion compensated gangways.
3. Relevant legal documents:

• The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 (Application outside Great Britain) Order 2013
• The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. General duties of employers to their employeesand General duties of employers and self-employed to persons other than their employees
• The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999. Regulation 3: Risk Assessment
• The Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998. Regulation 4: Suitability of work equipment, Regulation 5: Maintenance, Regulation 6: Inspectionand Regulation 11: Dangerous parts of machinery
• The Work at Height Regulations 2005

• Water rose to workers’ knees before emergency stop
• Incident was “terrifying”, says HSE inspector

An oil and gas operator has been fined £300,000 after three crew members descended into a water filled lift shaft on a floating platform in the North Sea causing them to become partially submerged.

The workers had been descending in a lift located in one of the platform legs on the FPF-1 facility during a night shift on 10 December 2020 when the water started to  flood into the lift before they reached the bottom of the shaft. The trio were knee-deep in water by the time the lift was able to be stopped by the workers via the emergency button.

Ithaca Energy (UK) Limited, the owner of FPF-1, pleaded guilty to safety failings at a hearing at Aberdeen Sheriff Court on Thursday, 12 June 2025.

An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found the three men had been tasked with carrying out inspection work at the base of one of the facility’s sub-sea columns.  During preparations to clear the inspection site of standing water beforehand, failings of hardware and incorrect operating procedures caused the bottom of the lift shaft to commence filling with water. Due to a lack of water alarms in the bottom of the lift shaft the control room was unaware that water was filling the shaft.

As the three men descended in the lift, they experienced a ‘rush of air’ before their fears of something being wrong were confirmed when the base of the lift made contact with the water. The three men were able to press an emergency stop button and returned safely to the main deck, with none of them sustaining any injuries.

The HSE investigation found that water marks on the lift door revealed it had reached a level of just under 1.5 metres before the lift was stopped and returned to surface. Ithaca’s own investigation determined that the water level could have actually reached more than three metres, meaning the men would have found it difficult to escape through the top hatch of the lift if the workers had used the lift later and/or had not been successful in bringing the lift to a halt immediately.

HSE issued Ithaca with an improvement notice and work in confined spaces was stopped by the company until February 2021 to allow a full review to take place.

Ithaca Energy (UK) Limited of Queens Road, Aberdeen pleaded guilty to breaching The Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998, 30 Regulation 4(1) and the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, Section 33(1)(a). The company was fined £300,000.

HSE inspector Ian Chilley said: “This was a terrifying incident for the workers involved, we are just thankful that no physical harm came to them.

“This fine should send a message and reminder to those operating offshore facilities for them to be extra vigilant.

“It was only a matter of good fortune that this incident didn’t result in serious injury, or worse.”

When passing sentence, the sheriff observed the case marked ‘another reminder of the need for rigorous adherence to health and safety in the oil and gas industry’.

Further information:

1. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is Britain’s national regulator for workplace health and safety. We are dedicated to protecting people and places, and helping everyone lead safer and healthier lives.
2. More information about the legislation referred to in this case is available.
3. Further details on the latest HSE news releases is available.
4. HSE does not pass sentences, set guidelines or collect any fines imposed. Relevant sentencing guidelines must be followed unless the court is satisfied that it would be contrary to the interests of justice to do so.  The sentencing guidelines for health and safety offences in Scotland can be found here.