Photos released from 2013 Entergy ANO fatal drop of a very heavy load

David Lochbaum, director, Nuclear Safety Project at the Union of Concerned Scientists, writes:

"On March 31, 2013, workers were removing a large, heavy part of the main generator at Arkansas Nuclear One when this load dropped. It killed one worker and injured others.

Pictures of the dropped part being removed from the plant and of the damage it did to the floor and walls of the turbine building were released via the Freedom of Information Act. Some of those pictures along with captions explaining what the images are showing are in a file posted to the UCS blog this morning at: http://allthingsnuclear.org/arkansas-nuclear-one-pictures-of-an-accident/"

Lochbaum stands by his takeaway, published not long after the fatal accident in 2013:

"Our Takeaway

The NRC reviewed U.S. nuclear plant experience with lifting loads with cranes between 1968 and 2002. The NRC reported that about two load drops per year happened during this period with ten incidents causing deaths. The NRC’s review concluded that there had been only three very heavy load drops (defined as a load weighing more than 30 tons). ANO-1 makes four.

Gravity never takes a minute off. Neither can vigilance to safety or tragedy can occur." (emphasis added)

When, during an NRC public meeting in Michigan, Entergy Palisades' site vice president, Anthony Vitale, bragged about his atomic reactor's spotless industrial safety record, just a few days after this Easter Sunday, 2013, fatal accident at Palisades' sister plant in Arkansas, Beyond Nuclear corrected the record, by sharing the tragic news from Arkansas. As Beyond Nuclear reported at the time, the worker killed at ANO was named Wade Walters of Russellville, AR. He was 24 years old.