Mississauga manufacturer fined $60,000 after worker pinned under 2,000-pound object
Published December 1, 2020 at 9:52 pm
A Mississauga company is facing a significant fine in connection with a serious workplace accident.
According to a court bulletin posted by the Ministry of Labour, Training and Skills Development, Cyclone Manufacturing Inc. has been fined $60,000 following a March 27, 2019, incident in which a worker was injured by an aircraft wing.
Cyclone Manufacturing manufactures aircraft parts and components.
According to the province, the worker was injured while assisting two co-workers with the rigging and flipping of a 2,000-pound, 22-foot-long wing component. The bulletin says the workers were attempting to steady the component to keep it from swinging while one operated the crane pendant to lift it from the supporting tables (which had free-moving wheels that did not lock in place) on which it was resting.
The province says that as the wing component was being prepared to be lifted off the tables, the table that was supporting the wing on one side suddenly slid out and one end of the wing fell, pinning one of the workers to the floor.
The worker was injured and required surgery.
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The investigation by the Ministry found that the single-sling choker hitch setup that was commonly used at Cyclone to lift and flip wing components from the supporting tables does not provide 360-degree contact with the load and is therefore not suited to moving long, heavy loads that are difficult to balance.
The ministry also found Cyclone did not have a means of securing the wheels on the supporting tables used during the processing of the wing, which contributed to the incident.
The province says Cyclone acted in ways that are contrary to the Occupational Health and Safety Act.
Following a guilty plea, Cyclone was fined in the provincial offences court in Mississauga. The court also imposed a 25-per-cent victim fine surcharge as required by the Provincial Offences Act.
The surcharge is credited to a special provincial government fund to assist victims of crime.
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