Safety Training -Lessons from the US Airways Hudson river landing
Again in this post, we go out of the industrial plant-into the air. Last weeks fabulous landing of the US Airways plane on the Hudson river emphasized one thing in particular, which is-the importance of the safety training. In our industrial plants, many times a new visitor or a recruit is perfunctorily shown a short “safety training” video. More often than not, this is a grainy ancient video that somebody made to comply with some XYZ regulation. The quality certainly does not show the seriousness with safety matters. (I am sure there are many of you out there who may have had a better experience, if so, please share it in the comments section). The plane landing incident only shows how important the safety training demo is. Most people on most flights sleep off/ignore/look the other way, thinking of course…”Oh that’s just a formality. It can’t happen to me!”. As this incident has shown, it CAN happen (that is why the demo includes what you should do if the plane lands on water). I hope all of you will now watch the safety demo at the beginning of the flight more seriously from now on. Also, please take down those grainy old VHS videos that are shown to new recruits and visitors to your industrial plants and replace them with something more visible, eye-catching and worth remembering. Why should it have to be a traditional video at all? It can be snazzy Flash movie, or something that can be downloaded to an MP4 player or shown on a projector on a big screen with sound and effects. The key is not only showing the video/demo/program… it is also making the visitor to your plant feel that your management takes safety seriously enough to invest in such things. People will remember it much better and maybe it does save somebody’s life in case of some undesirable occurence.
Perhaps you can take a leaf out of Abhisam Software’s e-learning courses? These cover subjects like Hazardous Area Instruments and Gas Detectors, making extensive use of Flash/Shockwave to engage the learner.
As for the commander of the airliner, it was a fantastic performance. BTW , I hear that he is also an aviation safety expert, so this knowledge must have helped tremendously.
Clean Coal? Not really, say Tennessee Valley residents
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, goes the old saying. Well, it has been proven once again in Tennessee. This week, on the Industrial Plant Safety blog, we will go slightly out of the plant and into the surrounding areas, to see what happens in case of a failure of the Safety & Environmental systems, in a power plant.
The Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston Fossil plant (about 40 miles west of Knoxville,TN), released a waste coal sludge of staggering proportions-all of 1 billion gallons of muck, to be precise, on Dec 22, 2008. The sludge damaged about 300 acres of land in Roane County. Three homes were completely destroyed and about 42 others were severely damaged. These afflicted residents have now sued the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) for about $5 million in a Knoxville court, reports Bloomberg.
The muck is not the type that you would take a mud bath in, to enhance your beauty. It contains toxins like arsenic, thallium, antimony, lead, cadmium, mercury and boron, according to the complaint. Have a look at the video below (posted on Live Leak).
Once again, the horrific pictures reiterate one fact-Plant Safety has to be taken seriously at all levels of the company’s management-it’s not just the Safety Manager who is responsible.
Irresponsible actions of even a handful of industrial plant managers/owners make the life of the rest of the industry miserable, as public opinion then inevitably swings against ALL industrial plants-not just the polluting or unsafe ones. This is something that no economy can afford to do.
Useful, intelligent comments as usual are welcome!
Happy New Year-Safety Resolutions 2009
Happy New Year to all of you there, who read this blog, subscribe via RSS and post useful comments! The year 2009 will be a watershed year in terms of the economy, our core beliefs, our politics and so many other things. Let us all resolve that we will keep safety uppermost in our list of priorities for the new year and not dilute any norms, standards or benchmarks anywhere-neither in our personal lives nor in our workplaces. For in the end what is safety? It is a means by which we can enjoy our existence on this planet in a manner that does not cause any pain, either to ourselves, our fellow citizens or the environment, which nurtures us.
This is the time when bean counters across the industrial world, those budget trimming bosses, target their sights on what they feel is “too much safety” that is “too costly”. Let us resist these efforts and convince the bean counters that after all, safety does pay and very handsome returns too- but in the long run. Cutting back on safety precautions may yield a few percentage points gain in the short term, but just one major incident, one boom! The next moment, you’re out of business! And possible not in existence anymore to learn any lessons!!
Let us not forget that the present economic mess that we are in, is due to the unbridled risk taking bucanneering tendencies among these same bean counters cousins in the financial sector, which have caused immeasurable misery to all. Had they followed the principles of industrial safety in their own finance field, we would not have been in this mess.
