Laing O'Rourke and SGB hit with T5 death fine

Laing O'Rourke and SGB have been fined a total of £105,000 after one man died and another was seriously injured when a concrete slab collapsed at Heathrow Airport's T5 in 2005 despite an earlier recall of defective equipment.

At a sentencing hearing on Friday at Isleworth Crown Court, Laing O’Rourke Infrastructure Limited was fined £75,000 and ordered to pay £75,000 in costs. SGB Services Ltd was fined £30,000 and ordered to pay £30,000 in costs.

The court heard that both men were part of a team building a multi-storey car park at Heathrow Airport’s Terminal 5 construction site. On 3 August 2005, 27-year-old Mathew Gilbert, who was a carpenter from Plymouth, and 21-year-old engineer’s assistant Parminder Singh, from Slough were standing on a concrete slab, when it collapsed and fell 17 metres to the level below.

Gilbert died in the collapse and Singh suffered serious life-changing injuries; he suffered a broken back, a broken leg and a broken jaw. He has extensive scarring and pain in his back when walking and sitting.

The construction of the car park required the use of Threaded Shoring Adaptors, also known as TSAs which were used to secure parts of the temporary works structure. The HSE investigation revealed that the collapse of the concrete slab was due to the catastrophic failure of two TSAs, which were found to be part of a sub-standard batch manufactured for SGB Services Ltd two years previously.

By supplying a batch of sub-standards TSAs in 2003, SGB Services Ltd failed to ensure that the TSAs they supplied were able to carry maximum loads. Furthermore, the company resupplied the same sub-standard TSAs to construction sites in 2005, despite having implemented a recall programme, which was intended to remove all defective TSAs from circulation.

The HSE investigation also found that Laing O’Rourke Infrastructure Ltd failed to have adequate systems in place to inspect the quality and condition of the TSAs before they were used in safety-critical applications, and had failed to remove sub-standard TSAs from use when warned.

HSE Inspector Karen Morris said: "The tragic death of one man and the serious injuries suffered by his colleague could have been prevented if both companies had had more robust systems in place. It is vital that safety-critical components are inspected before use to ensure that defective equipment is not used.

"It is also crucial that recall programmes are carried out effectively and thoroughly, so that defective components can not under any circumstances be brought back into circulation”.

"This case demonstrates an extremely serious failure of both the principal contractor and the supplier to ensure the materials they supplied for the work were fit for purpose."

An SGB statement said: "The background to these offences is that in early 2003 a subcontractor of SGB called Boultons had manufactured a batch of components called Threaded Shoring Adaptors (TSAs), which SGB supplied to a number of its customers.

"Unfortunately, Boultons had not manufactured this particular batch in accordance with the design drawing supplied to them by SGB meaning that they were not as strong as the components were intended to be. They were then supplied by SGB to customers in the belief that they were of normal strength and indeed at the time of their supply data sheets were given to customers stating that they were of standard strength.

"A few months later SGB identified the problem and immediately put in place a series of measures to control any risk including advising all customers who had received the product that they should use a reduced safe working load, and a recovery operation was put in place to arrange for the controlled return of the sub-standard TSAs to SGB.

"Although, the situation was serious, the overall risk was not as high as it might have been as TSAs are rarely used in situations where their full strength is required.  One of the customers who had received TSAs was Laing O’Rourke, working on the Terminal 5 development project. Like all other customers, they were immediately warned of the issue and given assistance by SGB to identify any sub-standard TSAs for return to SGB. In total, 628 sub-standard TSAs had been supplied to customers. Nearly all of them were returned from other sites but unfortunately the investigation into this incident two years later showed that a number were not returned by Laing O’Rourke at T5, despite many of those having been marked two years earlier in 2003 for return.

"Unfortunately, the incident that occurred on 3 August 2005 at T5 was triggered by failures of the TSAs. These were TSAs that had been marked for return. SGB greatly  regrets that its components were part of the structure that failed and everyone at SGB was greatly affected by the tragedy that occurred. Everyone involved from SGB sends its sincere condolences to Matthew Gilbert’s family and hopes also that Mr Singh has been able to make a good recovery. The company’s thoughts continue to be with Matthew Gilbert’s family and Mr Singh.

"SGB acknowledges that it should have had better systems in place in 2003 to ensure that the substandard TSA’s were not supplied in the first place. SGB notes that if the downrated TSA’s had been returned as requested in August 2003 the accident would not have occurred. In addition, if the TSA’s had been used as intended the loading would not have exceeded the downrated safe working loads and the TSA’s would not have failed. The HSE explicitly agreed prior to today’s hearing that SGB’s initial failure with respect to supply did not cause the accident.

"SGB would like to make it clear that it has taken measures following this incident to prevent a similar situation happening again. This includes that SGB now uses a different subcontractor to manufacture TSAs and has tightened its systems for identifying any sub-standard product before it is supplied."