A hole was discovered in the decking area of a North Sea rig on the same day an offshore worker was reported missing, an investigation by safety inspectors has found.
Jason Thomas, 50, from Wales, went missing from jackup drilling rig Valaris 121 on Sunday, January 22, while the platform was being towed about 100 miles south east of Aberdeen.
The Herald is only £1 for three months.
This offer ends Friday so click here and don't miss out!
A major search operation was launched involving two oil supply vessels, a Coastguard helicopter and Coastguard aeroplane.
The search was later stood down.
READ MORE: Police board North Sea rig as probe into worker's disappearance continues
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE), which is continuing to investigate the circumstances around Mr Thomas’ disappearance, said that, on January 22, a section of polymer grating on the rig dislodged, thereby exposing employees “to a risk to their safety by tripping on the displaced grating and/or falling through the subsequent hole in the decking area”.
The revelation has come to light via an improvement notice served by HSE against Ensco Offshore UK Limited UK.
The improvement notice reads: "On the 22 January 2023 a section of polymer grating, under your control on the Valaris 121 (located outside the Level 1 Port Side forward Temporary Refuge door), used to provide a means of access and egress, dislodged, thereby exposing employees and those who may otherwise be affected to a risk to their safety by tripping on the displaced grating and/or falling through the subsequent hole in the decking area. On further inspection on 9 Feb 2023, it was evident that other polymer grating systems had been installed similar to the one that was dislodged.”
A trade union boss said the findings “only served to confirm” initial fears that Mr Thomas fell through a gap in the gratings.
Jake Molloy, chairman of the Offshore Coordinating Group and RMT regional organiser, told Energy Voice: “We couldn’t say it publicly at the time obviously because we had to let the regulators investigate and it would have been wrong to speculate, but the HSE findings on gratings confirm that our fears were fully verified. We were told early on that it had appeared that Mr Thomas had gone through a gap in the gratings.”
HSE said it is liaising with the relevant authorities as the probe into Mr Thomas’ disappearance continues.
A HSE spokesperson said: “We are continuing to investigate the circumstances around Jason Thomas’ disappearance and are liaising with the relevant authorities. No further detail will be given during the investigation. We have been in contact with Jason’s family, with whom our thoughts remain.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here