HSE Prosecution: £3.2million fine for breach of Work at Height Regulations 2005

British Airways has been fined £3.2million after two employees suffered injuries after falling from height whilst working at Heathrow Terminal 5. The incidents occurred on separate occasions, but in both incidents, the employees were using luggage loading equipment that can operate between 1.5m and 3m off the ground.

On the first occurrence the employee was unloading baggage containers from an aircraft, when they slipped and fell 1.5m through gaps in the guardrails and suffered serious back and head injuries. After this incident, British Airways did not put in place suitable measures to prevent falls from height when conducting this activity.

Only months later, another employee fell 3m whilst also unloading baggage and suffered serious head injuries.

British Airways pleaded guilty to two charges of breaching their duty to take suitable and sufficient measures to prevent, so far as is reasonably practicable, any person falling a distance liable to cause personal injury, under section 6(3) of the Work at Height Regulations 2005. The judge concluded that culpability in both cases was high.

These incidents highlight failings in risk management and incident investigation procedures. Suitably risk assessing the activities and implementing safe systems of work will prevent employees being injured at work. Where an incident does occur, businesses should respond to mitigate the risk of a recurrence.