NDE Testing

Actual Happening.

We are working at a petrochemical processing plant busy with construction, currently it is the largest of it's kind in the world. But to make a long story short.

It happened on nightshift while every one was working , the NDE group came to perform their tests, the group safety officer and helpers set up the barricades and the technician starts his preparation for the test. Meanwhile there were 5 other people in the area working and had no prior warning to the testing, they were working further up in the air, directly above the test point. So un knowing to the NDE group about the personnel just above their heads they started their testing, some time later the 5 employees came down for a 10 min break and found themselves barricaded inside the radiography area, they started panicking and came out the unit up to the office and complained by us about this incident. So we went out and confronted the NDE group for not conforming to the specified testing procedure to ensure that no personnel was in the area when they are testing. They said that they did not know that any one was in the area. So the action we took to prevent this from happening again. We told the NDE group to report to our office prior to starting their activities so that we can get the safety department involved with getting the area cleared in which they will be performing the testing. Fortunately the radiation level's were very low at which they tested and no injuries were caused to the employees. We did talk about this the following evening to the employees and told them that they will be properly informed about any NDE activities being performed in any area prior to starting of such activities.

Contributed by E. Jacobs Saudi Kayan Petrochemical Complex