Alert 07 – 06 Near Miss – Dropped Joint of Casing
WHAT HAPPENED:
While running casing in the hole, the rig floor crew stabbed a joint of 9 5/8” casing. The stabber then removed the single joint pick-up elevators. The power tongs were placed around the pipe, but it was found that they were too low for the make-up process. In order to get the power tongs in the proper position, the air winch operator utilized the rig floor winch to hoist them, but the tongs came up at an angle causing them to bind on the casing. The binding of the tongs on the casing resulted in the upward motion of the tongs to be transferred to the casing joint allowing the air winch to lift the joint of casing. This caused it to fall across the rig floor and lean against the derrick.