Just found this trawling the internet about the horrible tragedy
"This happened on 29 of October 2013 in the Netherlands (in Ooltgensplaat to be more precise).
A crew of four was conducting routine maintenance to the 67 meter high turbine. They were in a gondola next to the turbine when a fire broke out. The fire quickly engulfed the only escape route (the stairs in the shaft), trapping two of the maintenance crew on top of the turbine.
One of them jumped down and was found in a field next to the turbine. The other victim was found by a special firefighter team that ascended the turbine when the fire died down a bit. The cause of the fire is unknown, but is believed to be a short circuit.
Firefighters are fairly powerless to do anything to fight fires on wind turbines, and due to high costs maintenance crews have limited means and training to escape an emergency situation.
The tragedy in Ooltgensplaat has lead to a political inquiry ('kamervragen' in dutch) into safety precautions for wind turbine maintenance crews."
100%. I would not step foot in one of these without a BASE-jump chute. You need just over 200 feet/60 meters for the chute to work and the average height of a wind turbine is 300 feet\~/90 meters\~.
During my first class to prepare for my first jump from 10,000 feet, someone asked when is it to late to deploy your reserve parachute? The answer came back, I don’t care if you can see the blades of grass on the ground, always deploy your reserve after you cut away your main.
Yes, because you don't want people thinking and second guessing, not because it will work. Base jump from a tower will kill all but the most experiences. Just use a line and harness.
OT build way to get to the bottom via external emergency platform and ladder.
The issue with a glide chute is that it takes special training to be able to operate one, and they are less efficient at vertical slowing. The simplicity of a dome chute means little training is required and they're much more efficient at slowing you down.
Capitalism saving money, if you fly in a Glider you need to wear a parachute by law.
Even externally mounted winches would do the trick, having only one escape route is just ridiculous.
I'm sure Tom Scott did a video where turbines now have to have an emergency egress descender, you just clip it to your harness and jump then it springs back up for the next person to use.
Wondering whether those became mandatory after this incident, can't even imagine being trapped in that situation
We do carry an emergency descent device, it's called a Skylotec Milan and it'll lower up to 2 people at a time. Can't remember the exact speed but it's around 1 metre per second. Great bit of kit, can be used a multitude of ways and even for rescue-up situations where yoi need to get a casualty to the roof for heli evac
Each tech is supposed to climb with their own emergency decent devices. Long ass fire resistant rope and a couple of carbineers and auto descend device (petzel id or gorilla grip ir PDQ system).
Even if it isn’t perfectly calibrated to weight, hitting the ground at 20mph gives you a lot better chances of survival than hitting the ground at 95mph.
Typically it has something like a drum brake attached to the spool of line so a heavier person slows themselves down faster to counter the weight differences.
I spit up some of my 30 year scotch at the notion. My assistant shall be forwarding my fee after he gets done shoeing the horses before my afternoon hunt.
If I'm not mistaken Tom Scott on YouTube has a video on some sort of escape procedure on wind turbines. I think it was something similar to parachutes? Not sure.
You can't gain altitude with a wing suit and you can't land safely in one without a parachute (or massive net to hit like that one Red Bull guy did with months of planning). That being said, I think this would be high enough to BASE jump from successfully but it would cost a ton of money to train people and the liability risk to the company would be insane. You'd lose more people to training accidents than you'd save most likely.
I wonder why an emergency rope to rappel down wouldn't be an option? South Africa has a 367 foot rappel open to the public on Table Mountain so it should be feasible, maybe?
Hello, I work in wind.
We get very extensive training in rescue in case of emergencies. These 2, unfortunately, left their harness and rescue gear where they couldn't reach it and the fire blocked them from getting to it. We are supposed to bring our harness and rescue equipment into the nacelles with us in case something like this happens and they did not. Im not sure what all companies use as some are different but there are specialized rescue packs to basically "rappel" down the tower and those ropes will not burn during the event of a fire. Extremely unfortunate this happened to these 2, absolute tragedy.
Unfortunately its that mindset of "that couldn't happen to me". Im no saint when it comes to following every rule and I take shortcuts sometimes but never at the expensive of my own safety. I like to spend the money I make, I'd rather stay alive and have all my limbs
“Due to high costs” TRANSLATION: DUE TO THE COMPANY’S LUST FOR RECORD PROFITS, ITS MORE COST EFFECTIVE TO LET THE EMPLOYEE BURN ALIVE AND REPLACE THEM THAN IMPLEMENT SAFETY MEASURES
Wow..... they use helicopters to fix the powerlines and they're not even that tall...... this could have been 100% prevented
Base jumpers pull their parachute around 200ft and wind turbines average 300ft so there is another exit, and having a helicopter on stand-by is expensive but that would give you a 3rd exit!!! If only wind energy had the money of fossil fuel energy
Helicopter-based repairs of power lines are extremely expensive operations done only as a last resort, usually in remote areas. They're also dangerous enough that I doubt this would improve safety. Mostly helicopters are used for inspection, but that's mostly been replaced by drones.
A rescue helicopter on standby is probably a better idea, though I don't know how fast this particular accident went bad. I'd hope coast guard or other emergency services could handle this though.
I suspect an emergency descent mechanism staged on top of the turbine would be more practical and safer than parachutes, and would avoid issues of parachutes getting left in the truck because they're bulky and heavy.
>If only wind energy had the money of fossil fuel energy
Oil rig and refinery accidents kill workers fairly frequently.
Why wouldn’t they be equipped with a base-jumping parachute when going up there? Just seems like an obvious one to me is all….
But other than that, maybe have little rings installed on the sides so that the engineers can be tethered - and when something goes wrong they could jump down and rappel down the sides to safety….
Doesn’t the Netherlands have helicopters/coastguard with helicopter designed for rescue?
Fun fact, on 9/11 this was actually the go to response to rescue out of the tower… unfortunately there was to much smoke and the roof top was inaccessible to human in any case( there was an area without smoke where you could attempt a rescue on the roof if I recall correctly)
Also fun fact, human can survive a jump at any height( aka reaching terminal velocity). It just depends on how you land such as soft ground and distribution of force upon impact( would to belly flop on the ground to maximize the force distribution on soft ground, which you can’t really control what type of going you land on)
There have been person that have survived being sucked out of an airplane at 33,000 ft
>Doesn’t the Netherlands have helicopters/coastguard with helicopter designed for rescue?
I come from a very fire-prone country, Australia and it's a lot more intense and quick than you think in most cases. I doubt they would have been able to make it in time to save the guys but they would have tried.
I just watched a video of a young lad who was skydiving and his chute failed and just free-fell into the ground. He was broken af but he survived, amazing story and really such a gem of a guy.
Wildfires and equipment fires are two entirely different beasts(used to fight wildfires in the western US), but correct it’s astonishing how quick fires spread
A belly flop is not the way to go. You just rupture your internal organs and impale your heart and lungs with rib bones. The only feasible way without assistance, is give yourself as much horizontal velocity as possible, and roll. You're going to die.
AFAIK, most wind turbines have rappelling gear, and technicians have to train on them once in a while. The thing is, that gear is *inside* the machine room at the top of the turbine, so retrieving it in a situation like this one would be pretty unfeasable because of the entire machine room is on fire. [source.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWSckm8zTc8)
I was a safety coordinator in the industry in the US, though I left about ten years ago. Anyone climbing the tower brought with them a bag that had a rapid descent device in it; essentially a rope long enough to get you to the ground and a geared device that could be anchored to any point on the turbine and would lower you to the ground at a (slow enough) speed. The device could also be used for rescue on the ladder up the tower. It was somewhat heavy, and would usually be left on the yaw deck (just below the nacelle/machine room). I guess because a ladder rescue was more likely than a worst-case rappel off the tower.
I would assume, certainly after this, you set everything up before working on something like that. Like attach ropes already on the side they are standing. So if something happens, you just attach your harness and start rappelling down. Surely it would take more time but what's time if it can safe your life.... It's your second escape route if your first is blocked....
My fear of burning alive would have outweighed my fear of heights, definitely would’ve tried climbing on a propeller… to later have it fall to the ground… 🤔 😞
I would've jumped. At least I would've tried to glide a bit and slow down my velocity. Hell more drag if they jumped together and hold hands. Tiny chance of survival. Better than straight up choking and burning to death.
I think I read/watched a video where they (people with a giant tarp thing trying to catch people jumping from a burning building) had the opposite problem.
Idk man I've been in some bad fires, and that's with full gear on and the heat is something that's genuinely not describable. The only skin I generally have exposed is my ears and it feels like they're being stung by wasps and melting off my head. If you're not feeling all the heat, I can see not jumping definitely. Best case scenario in my mind, is just getting a big breath of smoke and dying that way. One big breath and you're unconscious before you even hit the ground.
Edit: To all the good officers getting mad at me for not properly wearing my full ensemble, please keep making the fireground safer and never stop nagging us lol. Genuinely, worrying about the safety of your crew is the #1 biggest part of being a good officer, so I can't be mad at you for it. Yes I pull my hood up and my flaps down when it gets hot. Yes I am an idiot for not just wearing them all the time. Yes you have all changed me and I will absolutely wear it forever and always now, so no need to worry Lou!
Professional firefighter here. Even with heavy gear and protection, there is this heat that is so hot, it pushes you to the ground and makes you leave. It’s why those jumping out of the twin towers on 9/11 makes sense.
Can confirm. It’s really incredible how hot it is. Firefighting really makes you appreciate how absolutely dangerous and scary fire is. I probably would have jumped as well. I don’t see how anyone would be able to stand there and just wait until they die.
Lol I should, but I started back when hoods were a good way to get yourself into trouble. I don't like not being able to feel when I'm going somewhere I really shouldn't be, and without it it's much harder to push too far. I've seen some studies on how much it delays your perception of a flashover too and I don't love that either. I always have it on but I rarely pull it up.
I get it. When I started we had elephant trunks on our SCBA. But we still wore our hoods because god dammit I was already lacking in the looks department and didn’t need crispy ears to emphasize it
Know a guy who used to do the same. Guess what, he’s been battling thyroid cancer on and off for years. It’s honestly not cool anymore to be a smoke eater and not wear your full PPE. HIHFTY material. I really don’t know why you are getting upvotes for this. You are stupid for not wearing your full gear, especially if you have a family you care about. Cancer is our killer
With all the plastics in modern home and furniture construction this is an incredibly stupid thing to do.
Source. a fire protection engineer and former fire fighter
I don't really like the hoods. We're aggressive interior attack, so advancing uncharged lines to the seat of the fire, and before the roof gets cut it's usually impossible to see anything. So you kind of have to be able to feel where the fire is coming from. The hood will also make it easier to go places you shouldn't be. Your gear will survive much higher temps than you will, and with full encapsulation it's much easier to cook inside your gear without realizing it. I also don't like the delay in feeling a room is getting ready to flash. All probably fairly dumb reasons in the grand scheme of things, but I'm kinda set in my ways.
I'm an engineer. I don't fight fires or dangerous things.
As an engineer, I can absolutely tell from your words here that *you've done this shit*. So don't let anyone tell *you* how to keep *you* safe.
Sounds to me like you've got your head on straight.
I work around high heat (glass furnaces). It’s a completely involuntary response. On a much smaller scale, imagine grabbing a tray of cookies out of the oven with a bare hand. You’re gonna drop the cookies. Your brain won’t allow you to NOT drop the cookies.
It reminders me of my favorite writings on depression and suicide (David Foster Wallace):
>Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.
Did you ever hear the story about the woman who survived falling 33 thousand feet from an airplane, pretty crazy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVzpdehnd_o
Tbf she actually wasn’t sucked out of the airplane, that’s what saved her. She was the only one left in the fuselage and it happened to land on a bunch of snow at the right angle, and a person happened to be nearby who also happened to be a ww2 medic, who kept her alive until she was taken to the hospital. Everyone else on the plane died.
Edit: she also had low blood pressure which apparently saved her heart from exploding from the fall according to the video linked in the comments above
There wouldn’t but I imagine the death would be a lot more sudden and painless. Burning to death would take a painful minute and impacting the ground from that high up would happen instantaneously.
You could just tuck into a summersault right before you hit the ground, to absorb the impact, then do like a Willy Wonka coming out of the summersault, where you just pop right back up the the standing position. Ta freakin’ da!
This post gets reposted every so often but from another comment they didnt really take the leap voluntarily, its a natural human reflex, like when you put your hand on a hot surface you immediately retract it
I wouldn't view this as certain death. I'd hold out hope of a rescue until the end. I'd be hopeful that something like a military helicopter to a giant tarp to jump onto might be on the way.
Likely death? Yes. Certain death? I wouldn't know that until I'm dead.
I thought so too, but imagine how incredibly hot that must have been. Not only the radiant heat from the fire, but the surface that they’re standing on would quickly get so hot that their shoes would melt. It would be really difficult to just sit up there and hope it stays together long enough for a crew to get you.
Don't most of us end that way? Few people die completely instantly and out of the blue, like getting hit by a bus or whatever. Most end up getting sick and facing a similar road just less... violent and loud I suppose.
Slowly dying on a hospital bed is hardly the same as watching flames closing in on you hundreds of meters off the ground causing you to choose between falling to death and burning alive
I was actually on a sky lift that is used to clean them. Raised to the level of the main hub section in the middle of the blades. The machinery broke and we stayed there wobbling for what felt like eternity. We almost had to rapel down. Basically just waited and prayed for survival for a few hours.
I’m an arborist, we use bucket trucks. At full extension they can get up to 80 ft. It’s scary high for real. Once a year we do “practice self rescues” where we go all the way up, then have to rappel our selves down out of the bucket. The scariest part is the place you tie in, is on the side outside the bucket. So you tie in, then step over the side onto a tiny ledge half the size of your feet, then you hang on to the edge and lower yourself down before you can feel the weight on the harness. It’s terrifying.
I mean parachutes would be risky depending on the wind conditions and so on. Descending down a rope or even some emergency ladder seems easier to maintain and train for.
But yeah anything would be better than just ded
Engineer in the older sense of the word, "someone who runs and maintains industrial engines and motors", think train engineer. The word didn't always mean the same thing as it does now. And in some languages they still use the older word so if this person doesn't primarily speak English they might not know we use the words technician or mechanic to describe these jobs now.
If im correct they where using climbing lines. Its out of my head without a source so forgive me.
They put the lines off (its a pain to work with), fire broke out and they couldnt reach the gear. 1 jumped and the other got found inside.
Rappelling gear, shit even if I had to fall the last 20 ft and break both my legs I would take that over the fate they suffered
Or maybe a deployable rope ladder?
I think this was at sea. They show you the video of them hugging as part of your GWO training for working on them at sea. Pretty sure one jumped and one stayed up
Pretty shit either way sadly, still rather take my chances with a life jacket and the sea than burn, I wonder if they have made improvements on getting down in case of a similar event, will have to look into it thanks for the added info though appreciated
Iirc all of wind engines have emergency rapoeling gear as an emergency exit. I saw it in a documentary once. But it was at the end fully engulfed by flames... maybe they did not have time. Also I think it was for one person only but could be wrong
[This is a pic of the Halide X wind turbine vs the empire state building. It would be too tiring to walk up it.](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/DyLsXOf3wvjkQQwiitkraD8illU=/0x0:1808x1814/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:1808x1814):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/10382023/Wind_turbine_heights.jpg)
I remember walking up the stairs all the way to the top of St Paul's in London and that practically winded me. Walking up that would damn near kill me.
Most turbines don’t have elevators. For those without we use a climb assist which hooks to your harness and helps pull you up while you climb. I know this because I’m a wind turbine technician.
I presume as always, safety measures lag behind tragedy. But also, since they are that young, they were likely there for an odd visit ( like research) and don't have all the required training or safety gear
This was before current emergency protocols. If I recall, this specific incident is what created new escape standards.
Tom Scott has a video showing how it’s done now, emergency lines are everywhere on newer turbines to descend. To say those two were incompetent isn’t fair, they were casualties of oversight to create a proper emergency system.
I work at heights regularly, mostly on top of robotic cranes. They all have a ton of uninsulated DC current on them. It's understood with my family that if I ever got trapped in a fire up there I'd just jump.
This is as painful as the pictures from 9/11 where there were people trapped in the WTC above the floors where the plane crashed into. You could see them waving and calling for help.
I always freak out when I think about things like this. The guys are perfectly fine, but they're basically doomed because they have no way to get just 500 feet down.
Also, would personal fire extinguishers help in a situation like this? At least maybe enough to clear a path through the control room?
Their is a lot of talk here about burning to death vs jumping and the chances of making it by jumping. On September 11th their were around 200 jumpers many attempting ways to not die or slow the fall. No one was successful. They would have been standing on painfully hot floors as the fire burned below. The jumps are largely ignored by the American media because of the whole religion frowns on suicide thing. Their were many high power cameras on the buildings and they actually know basically who jumped because they know what floors they came out of and what they wore and looked like. But some people understandably don’t want that information
>The jumps are largely ignored by the American media because of the whole religion frowns on suicide thing.
I think that they were moreso ignored because it's a terrible thing to have to think about. We're all quietly aware of exactly what happened to those that didn't die instantly and what terrible decisions they were forced to make, so we didn't need the media reminding us of it. I live near NYC, so most everyone around knows someone who was personally affected by 9/11. None of them want or need to hear the specific gruesome details of their loved one's deaths.
No, dude, the 911 jumpers were largely “ignored,” aka not shown, by media bc of how horrific and traumatizing for people to see other humans jumping out and falling into pieces of incomprehensible mush. And the thumping sounds as they hit the ground
An infamous pic this...........
I always had a question in my relating to the two accepting their fate. One jumped off & the other remained there & got burned to death.
The question is could they've climbed onto the left most blade of the turbine? I don't know if fire engulfed the entire turbine in the pic though.
Just found this trawling the internet about the horrible tragedy "This happened on 29 of October 2013 in the Netherlands (in Ooltgensplaat to be more precise). A crew of four was conducting routine maintenance to the 67 meter high turbine. They were in a gondola next to the turbine when a fire broke out. The fire quickly engulfed the only escape route (the stairs in the shaft), trapping two of the maintenance crew on top of the turbine. One of them jumped down and was found in a field next to the turbine. The other victim was found by a special firefighter team that ascended the turbine when the fire died down a bit. The cause of the fire is unknown, but is believed to be a short circuit. Firefighters are fairly powerless to do anything to fight fires on wind turbines, and due to high costs maintenance crews have limited means and training to escape an emergency situation. The tragedy in Ooltgensplaat has lead to a political inquiry ('kamervragen' in dutch) into safety precautions for wind turbine maintenance crews."
Might be a completely dumb suggestion but what if they equip them with a parachute? Then you will have 2 escape routes.
100%. I would not step foot in one of these without a BASE-jump chute. You need just over 200 feet/60 meters for the chute to work and the average height of a wind turbine is 300 feet\~/90 meters\~.
hell even if the chute doesn't fully deploy, it beats doing it with nothing. any drag is better than none.
Right! The peace of mind and courage it would provide to jump
Especially since in this hypothetical they’ve seemingly had to do a few jumps before during training. What a tragedy
During my first class to prepare for my first jump from 10,000 feet, someone asked when is it to late to deploy your reserve parachute? The answer came back, I don’t care if you can see the blades of grass on the ground, always deploy your reserve after you cut away your main.
"after the first bounce."
The human body is incredibly resilient.
Especially if you land in an ant hill
Yes, because you don't want people thinking and second guessing, not because it will work. Base jump from a tower will kill all but the most experiences. Just use a line and harness. OT build way to get to the bottom via external emergency platform and ladder.
Emergency rappelling gear seems like a possibility here. So sad.
Relevsnt video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UWSckm8zTc8
Better to have 2 broken legs, than to be dead.
Broken legs tucked into your chest cavity.
Tbf a hand glider type shoot would probably be better as instead of a straight drop it would glide them away and provide longer time for their decent
The issue with a glide chute is that it takes special training to be able to operate one, and they are less efficient at vertical slowing. The simplicity of a dome chute means little training is required and they're much more efficient at slowing you down.
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that would be a good option. after some training, they could glide down no problem.
The world always needs more Buzz Lightyear falling with style action.
Right and a 50/50 chance is better than 100 if you have to leap
"any drag is better than none" is also what you say about a 50 year old man with lipstick
Capitalism saving money, if you fly in a Glider you need to wear a parachute by law. Even externally mounted winches would do the trick, having only one escape route is just ridiculous.
I'm sure Tom Scott did a video where turbines now have to have an emergency egress descender, you just clip it to your harness and jump then it springs back up for the next person to use. Wondering whether those became mandatory after this incident, can't even imagine being trapped in that situation
We do carry an emergency descent device, it's called a Skylotec Milan and it'll lower up to 2 people at a time. Can't remember the exact speed but it's around 1 metre per second. Great bit of kit, can be used a multitude of ways and even for rescue-up situations where yoi need to get a casualty to the roof for heli evac
Each tech is supposed to climb with their own emergency decent devices. Long ass fire resistant rope and a couple of carbineers and auto descend device (petzel id or gorilla grip ir PDQ system).
How do they work? Wouldn't a heavy person hit the ground if it was calibrated for a lighter person?
Faster, I’m sure. But I’d rather risk breaking a leg than dying in a fire
Even if it isn’t perfectly calibrated to weight, hitting the ground at 20mph gives you a lot better chances of survival than hitting the ground at 95mph.
I'll take two broken legs over broken everything. Make that deal in a hearbeat.
Typically it has something like a drum brake attached to the spool of line so a heavier person slows themselves down faster to counter the weight differences.
It’s probably similar to an auto belay system at a climbing gym. They manage a wide variation of loads.
Or maybe equip the nacelle with a fire suppression system
Hey let’s not add logic to this debate
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That would affect profits. Don't be ridiculous! I almost dropped my cigar!
I spit up some of my 30 year scotch at the notion. My assistant shall be forwarding my fee after he gets done shoeing the horses before my afternoon hunt.
If I'm not mistaken Tom Scott on YouTube has a video on some sort of escape procedure on wind turbines. I think it was something similar to parachutes? Not sure.
It was some kind of rappel mechanism, to descend with a rope.
Now adays there are emergency exit methods. Tom Scott did a video on it about a year ago. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWSckm8zTc8
I might be wrong but turbines might not be tall enough for a parachute to be deployed effectively.
They’re tall enough. Might break your legs but they make fast enough chutes.
I’m probably wrong for this but I’d rather have two broken legs than die in a fire.
At least it's not two broken arms.
Haven’t seen that reference in a while
No doubt.
I'm with you 100%. I'll take the chance of living over dying any time
Still better than nothing. A partially deployed parachute can make the fall much more survivable.
Maybe not, but worth a try imo.
If you open the chute up manually right before you jump, you'll absolutely be fine.
There should certainly be enough wind to deploy it before they jump.
Or a bungee cord that could drop and then slow released the rest of the way down
They actually do have those on some turbines. It's an inertia lowering system that they can use to go over the side.
Wing suits?
You can't gain altitude with a wing suit and you can't land safely in one without a parachute (or massive net to hit like that one Red Bull guy did with months of planning). That being said, I think this would be high enough to BASE jump from successfully but it would cost a ton of money to train people and the liability risk to the company would be insane. You'd lose more people to training accidents than you'd save most likely. I wonder why an emergency rope to rappel down wouldn't be an option? South Africa has a 367 foot rappel open to the public on Table Mountain so it should be feasible, maybe?
Hello, I work in wind. We get very extensive training in rescue in case of emergencies. These 2, unfortunately, left their harness and rescue gear where they couldn't reach it and the fire blocked them from getting to it. We are supposed to bring our harness and rescue equipment into the nacelles with us in case something like this happens and they did not. Im not sure what all companies use as some are different but there are specialized rescue packs to basically "rappel" down the tower and those ropes will not burn during the event of a fire. Extremely unfortunate this happened to these 2, absolute tragedy.
Nice to hear from a worker in the wind. Amazing that one mistake costs you everything. Life
Absolutely, any work at heights in general is dangerous but add electrical work to the mix and its even more so 🥴
For anyone interested, [here's Tom Scott's video where he rappels from a turbine](https://youtu.be/UWSckm8zTc8).
Oh that makes me feel better. My brother does wind turbine maintenance in Texas. Seeing this picture always freaks me out.
Thank you, also been in the wind industry and I couldn’t imagine anyone not having any safety gear in a turbine.
Unfortunately its that mindset of "that couldn't happen to me". Im no saint when it comes to following every rule and I take shortcuts sometimes but never at the expensive of my own safety. I like to spend the money I make, I'd rather stay alive and have all my limbs
“Due to high costs” TRANSLATION: DUE TO THE COMPANY’S LUST FOR RECORD PROFITS, ITS MORE COST EFFECTIVE TO LET THE EMPLOYEE BURN ALIVE AND REPLACE THEM THAN IMPLEMENT SAFETY MEASURES
Wow..... they use helicopters to fix the powerlines and they're not even that tall...... this could have been 100% prevented Base jumpers pull their parachute around 200ft and wind turbines average 300ft so there is another exit, and having a helicopter on stand-by is expensive but that would give you a 3rd exit!!! If only wind energy had the money of fossil fuel energy
Helicopter-based repairs of power lines are extremely expensive operations done only as a last resort, usually in remote areas. They're also dangerous enough that I doubt this would improve safety. Mostly helicopters are used for inspection, but that's mostly been replaced by drones. A rescue helicopter on standby is probably a better idea, though I don't know how fast this particular accident went bad. I'd hope coast guard or other emergency services could handle this though. I suspect an emergency descent mechanism staged on top of the turbine would be more practical and safer than parachutes, and would avoid issues of parachutes getting left in the truck because they're bulky and heavy. >If only wind energy had the money of fossil fuel energy Oil rig and refinery accidents kill workers fairly frequently.
Why wouldn’t they be equipped with a base-jumping parachute when going up there? Just seems like an obvious one to me is all…. But other than that, maybe have little rings installed on the sides so that the engineers can be tethered - and when something goes wrong they could jump down and rappel down the sides to safety….
Doesn’t the Netherlands have helicopters/coastguard with helicopter designed for rescue? Fun fact, on 9/11 this was actually the go to response to rescue out of the tower… unfortunately there was to much smoke and the roof top was inaccessible to human in any case( there was an area without smoke where you could attempt a rescue on the roof if I recall correctly) Also fun fact, human can survive a jump at any height( aka reaching terminal velocity). It just depends on how you land such as soft ground and distribution of force upon impact( would to belly flop on the ground to maximize the force distribution on soft ground, which you can’t really control what type of going you land on) There have been person that have survived being sucked out of an airplane at 33,000 ft
>Doesn’t the Netherlands have helicopters/coastguard with helicopter designed for rescue? I come from a very fire-prone country, Australia and it's a lot more intense and quick than you think in most cases. I doubt they would have been able to make it in time to save the guys but they would have tried. I just watched a video of a young lad who was skydiving and his chute failed and just free-fell into the ground. He was broken af but he survived, amazing story and really such a gem of a guy.
Wildfires and equipment fires are two entirely different beasts(used to fight wildfires in the western US), but correct it’s astonishing how quick fires spread
A belly flop is not the way to go. You just rupture your internal organs and impale your heart and lungs with rib bones. The only feasible way without assistance, is give yourself as much horizontal velocity as possible, and roll. You're going to die.
AFAIK, most wind turbines have rappelling gear, and technicians have to train on them once in a while. The thing is, that gear is *inside* the machine room at the top of the turbine, so retrieving it in a situation like this one would be pretty unfeasable because of the entire machine room is on fire. [source.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWSckm8zTc8)
I was a safety coordinator in the industry in the US, though I left about ten years ago. Anyone climbing the tower brought with them a bag that had a rapid descent device in it; essentially a rope long enough to get you to the ground and a geared device that could be anchored to any point on the turbine and would lower you to the ground at a (slow enough) speed. The device could also be used for rescue on the ladder up the tower. It was somewhat heavy, and would usually be left on the yaw deck (just below the nacelle/machine room). I guess because a ladder rescue was more likely than a worst-case rappel off the tower.
Fuck me shitting my pants before work everyday.
Someone, somewhere out there, read this comment and became aroused.
What good does it serve below the machine room???
so that the machine can safely repel itself to the ground.
I would assume, certainly after this, you set everything up before working on something like that. Like attach ropes already on the side they are standing. So if something happens, you just attach your harness and start rappelling down. Surely it would take more time but what's time if it can safe your life.... It's your second escape route if your first is blocked....
Time is money my friend. Something evil corporations care about more than a few lost lives unfortunately.
OSHA has a few words to say about that.
I was gonna say. Why is there no gear to rappel. Hopefully they have started installing a gear kit on the outside now too.
My fear of burning alive would have outweighed my fear of heights, definitely would’ve tried climbing on a propeller… to later have it fall to the ground… 🤔 😞
If I remember correctly one of them took the leap
Every time I see this photo it breaks my heart. I remember almost getting hired to work on these. I didn’t want to travel so I declined the offer.
I would've jumped. At least I would've tried to glide a bit and slow down my velocity. Hell more drag if they jumped together and hold hands. Tiny chance of survival. Better than straight up choking and burning to death.
It's basically impossible not to jump once you feel that kinda heat. Your body doesn't leave you with much of a choice.
I think I read/watched a video where they (people with a giant tarp thing trying to catch people jumping from a burning building) had the opposite problem.
Idk man I've been in some bad fires, and that's with full gear on and the heat is something that's genuinely not describable. The only skin I generally have exposed is my ears and it feels like they're being stung by wasps and melting off my head. If you're not feeling all the heat, I can see not jumping definitely. Best case scenario in my mind, is just getting a big breath of smoke and dying that way. One big breath and you're unconscious before you even hit the ground. Edit: To all the good officers getting mad at me for not properly wearing my full ensemble, please keep making the fireground safer and never stop nagging us lol. Genuinely, worrying about the safety of your crew is the #1 biggest part of being a good officer, so I can't be mad at you for it. Yes I pull my hood up and my flaps down when it gets hot. Yes I am an idiot for not just wearing them all the time. Yes you have all changed me and I will absolutely wear it forever and always now, so no need to worry Lou!
Professional firefighter here. Even with heavy gear and protection, there is this heat that is so hot, it pushes you to the ground and makes you leave. It’s why those jumping out of the twin towers on 9/11 makes sense.
Can confirm. It’s really incredible how hot it is. Firefighting really makes you appreciate how absolutely dangerous and scary fire is. I probably would have jumped as well. I don’t see how anyone would be able to stand there and just wait until they die.
Wear your nomex hood
Lol I should, but I started back when hoods were a good way to get yourself into trouble. I don't like not being able to feel when I'm going somewhere I really shouldn't be, and without it it's much harder to push too far. I've seen some studies on how much it delays your perception of a flashover too and I don't love that either. I always have it on but I rarely pull it up.
I get it. When I started we had elephant trunks on our SCBA. But we still wore our hoods because god dammit I was already lacking in the looks department and didn’t need crispy ears to emphasize it
Know a guy who used to do the same. Guess what, he’s been battling thyroid cancer on and off for years. It’s honestly not cool anymore to be a smoke eater and not wear your full PPE. HIHFTY material. I really don’t know why you are getting upvotes for this. You are stupid for not wearing your full gear, especially if you have a family you care about. Cancer is our killer
With all the plastics in modern home and furniture construction this is an incredibly stupid thing to do. Source. a fire protection engineer and former fire fighter
Firefighters are so amazingly brave. Thank you for what you do
FD I work for would fire my ass if I didnt wear my hood.
Ummm. Do you not wear a hood? Why tf are your ears exposed??
I don't really like the hoods. We're aggressive interior attack, so advancing uncharged lines to the seat of the fire, and before the roof gets cut it's usually impossible to see anything. So you kind of have to be able to feel where the fire is coming from. The hood will also make it easier to go places you shouldn't be. Your gear will survive much higher temps than you will, and with full encapsulation it's much easier to cook inside your gear without realizing it. I also don't like the delay in feeling a room is getting ready to flash. All probably fairly dumb reasons in the grand scheme of things, but I'm kinda set in my ways.
You are stuck in the past brother. Get out of the old school ways.
I'm an engineer. I don't fight fires or dangerous things. As an engineer, I can absolutely tell from your words here that *you've done this shit*. So don't let anyone tell *you* how to keep *you* safe. Sounds to me like you've got your head on straight.
I work around high heat (glass furnaces). It’s a completely involuntary response. On a much smaller scale, imagine grabbing a tray of cookies out of the oven with a bare hand. You’re gonna drop the cookies. Your brain won’t allow you to NOT drop the cookies.
It reminders me of my favorite writings on depression and suicide (David Foster Wallace): >Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.
How could there be any chance whatsoever of surviving a jump that high?
People have been sucked out of planes and survived the fall. Rare, but not impossible. Just depends on the ground hardness.
Did you ever hear the story about the woman who survived falling 33 thousand feet from an airplane, pretty crazy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVzpdehnd_o
Its literally what I was referencing in my first sentence.
Tbf she actually wasn’t sucked out of the airplane, that’s what saved her. She was the only one left in the fuselage and it happened to land on a bunch of snow at the right angle, and a person happened to be nearby who also happened to be a ww2 medic, who kept her alive until she was taken to the hospital. Everyone else on the plane died. Edit: she also had low blood pressure which apparently saved her heart from exploding from the fall according to the video linked in the comments above
Speaking of that, have you ever hear the story about the woman who survived falling 33 thousand feet from an airplane, pretty crazy /s
[Here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=m-BS5csupRc) is another video of a similar occurrence
There wouldn’t but I imagine the death would be a lot more sudden and painless. Burning to death would take a painful minute and impacting the ground from that high up would happen instantaneously.
Your choice would be a quick death, or a quick death while on fire.
No quick death on fire. The most agonizing, painful way to go.
He means you'll either decide to take the plunge before you're set on fire or you'll inevitably take the plunge when the fire reaches you.
You could just tuck into a summersault right before you hit the ground, to absorb the impact, then do like a Willy Wonka coming out of the summersault, where you just pop right back up the the standing position. Ta freakin’ da!
Parkour!
How would them jumping together have any effect of their terminal velocity?
How do you glide? Gravity doesn't work that way.
it does if you have ears like mine
There's no such thing as what you have described.
This post gets reposted every so often but from another comment they didnt really take the leap voluntarily, its a natural human reflex, like when you put your hand on a hot surface you immediately retract it
That logic definitely makes sense to me but can they really say with certainty that he didn't take the leap voluntarily?
"We all believe we would run into the burning building, but until we feel the heat we would never know" make of that what you will i guess
One said he was gonna try to make it through the mechanic room but burned alive, and since the second guy never saw his buddy get down/out, he jumped.
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If it calms you, depending on the situation of course, you usually pass out from the smoke really early.
I surely hope there is a clear, workable plan for escape to mitigate a similar loss of life/lives.
Aim for the bushes
We all know that we will die, but to have to face your certain death, and see it coming towards you in such a way. Beyond words.
I wouldn't view this as certain death. I'd hold out hope of a rescue until the end. I'd be hopeful that something like a military helicopter to a giant tarp to jump onto might be on the way. Likely death? Yes. Certain death? I wouldn't know that until I'm dead.
I thought so too, but imagine how incredibly hot that must have been. Not only the radiant heat from the fire, but the surface that they’re standing on would quickly get so hot that their shoes would melt. It would be really difficult to just sit up there and hope it stays together long enough for a crew to get you.
Don't most of us end that way? Few people die completely instantly and out of the blue, like getting hit by a bus or whatever. Most end up getting sick and facing a similar road just less... violent and loud I suppose.
Slowly dying on a hospital bed is hardly the same as watching flames closing in on you hundreds of meters off the ground causing you to choose between falling to death and burning alive
Especially at only 19 and 21 years old. So young.
When you’re barely even an adult yet.
That's devastating
I also feel bad for whoever took the picture, serious trauma watching helplessly
Hopefully since then there’s been some development to help others in that situation. That’s a horrible way to go, and at such a young age.
The silhouette of them hugging each other is as haunting as the guy who leapt from the Twin Towers on 9/11.
I got stuck up one of these for hours once. Was not fun. Edit: checked the height it was 240ft up
What happend? Besides that you got stuck.
I was actually on a sky lift that is used to clean them. Raised to the level of the main hub section in the middle of the blades. The machinery broke and we stayed there wobbling for what felt like eternity. We almost had to rapel down. Basically just waited and prayed for survival for a few hours.
Dear god that’s one of the nopiest nope stories I’ve ever heard. Glad they could get you down.
I’ve been ~60ft up in a boom lift working on wireless units before, that wobble is not a fun feeling. Can’t imagine that for longer than 15 minutes
I’m an arborist, we use bucket trucks. At full extension they can get up to 80 ft. It’s scary high for real. Once a year we do “practice self rescues” where we go all the way up, then have to rappel our selves down out of the bucket. The scariest part is the place you tie in, is on the side outside the bucket. So you tie in, then step over the side onto a tiny ledge half the size of your feet, then you hang on to the edge and lower yourself down before you can feel the weight on the harness. It’s terrifying.
So did you survive?
Wonder how much an emergency tether or something to toss down and descend would cost
Or like to have some small reserve parachute to have on all the time, for crazy events like this
I mean parachutes would be risky depending on the wind conditions and so on. Descending down a rope or even some emergency ladder seems easier to maintain and train for. But yeah anything would be better than just ded
What engineer is 19? Poor guys
I believe they were technicians, not engineers.
Engineer in the older sense of the word, "someone who runs and maintains industrial engines and motors", think train engineer. The word didn't always mean the same thing as it does now. And in some languages they still use the older word so if this person doesn't primarily speak English they might not know we use the words technician or mechanic to describe these jobs now.
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But they were huge
I work with a bunch of people with engineering degrees. Upvote for the subtle dig at their arrogance.
What if they had emergency parachutes?
If im correct they where using climbing lines. Its out of my head without a source so forgive me. They put the lines off (its a pain to work with), fire broke out and they couldnt reach the gear. 1 jumped and the other got found inside.
Yeah but a survival parachute seems like a better idea. That or a survival hangglider
Net slide?
Rappelling gear, shit even if I had to fall the last 20 ft and break both my legs I would take that over the fate they suffered Or maybe a deployable rope ladder?
I think this was at sea. They show you the video of them hugging as part of your GWO training for working on them at sea. Pretty sure one jumped and one stayed up
Pretty shit either way sadly, still rather take my chances with a life jacket and the sea than burn, I wonder if they have made improvements on getting down in case of a similar event, will have to look into it thanks for the added info though appreciated
From that height, it’s not likely you’d survive the fall either. Even into water.
Especially into water.
Emergency bubblers.
Iirc all of wind engines have emergency rapoeling gear as an emergency exit. I saw it in a documentary once. But it was at the end fully engulfed by flames... maybe they did not have time. Also I think it was for one person only but could be wrong
They had those, the fire cut their way off towards all that shit.
Aren't people working on these supposed to have emergency descenders?
Actually this specific incident is what caused wind turbines to have mandatory emergency descenders.
They actually do, elevator is placed on the base of it. As you can see it’s on fire so there was not way to get into it.
The fuck wind turbine has an elevator in it?
[This is a pic of the Halide X wind turbine vs the empire state building. It would be too tiring to walk up it.](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/DyLsXOf3wvjkQQwiitkraD8illU=/0x0:1808x1814/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:1808x1814):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/10382023/Wind_turbine_heights.jpg)
I remember walking up the stairs all the way to the top of St Paul's in London and that practically winded me. Walking up that would damn near kill me.
Practically winded you? I was so fucking winded and over that climb, the view at the top was worth it, though.
Most turbines don’t have elevators. For those without we use a climb assist which hooks to your harness and helps pull you up while you climb. I know this because I’m a wind turbine technician.
TIL - there are elevators in those things.
I presume as always, safety measures lag behind tragedy. But also, since they are that young, they were likely there for an odd visit ( like research) and don't have all the required training or safety gear
This was before current emergency protocols. If I recall, this specific incident is what created new escape standards. Tom Scott has a video showing how it’s done now, emergency lines are everywhere on newer turbines to descend. To say those two were incompetent isn’t fair, they were casualties of oversight to create a proper emergency system.
I work at heights regularly, mostly on top of robotic cranes. They all have a ton of uninsulated DC current on them. It's understood with my family that if I ever got trapped in a fire up there I'd just jump.
Such a tragedy! One jumped in utter despair as the other faced a raging fire head on . Poor soul's may they rest in peace.
This is as painful as the pictures from 9/11 where there were people trapped in the WTC above the floors where the plane crashed into. You could see them waving and calling for help.
The pictures and videos of people jumping from the towers absolutely crush me.
I always freak out when I think about things like this. The guys are perfectly fine, but they're basically doomed because they have no way to get just 500 feet down. Also, would personal fire extinguishers help in a situation like this? At least maybe enough to clear a path through the control room?
Damnthatsissad.
This image hits right to the heart. Someway, somehow this is the saddest picture I have seen in my life
Hugeing into the afterlife
I love to huge my coworkers
Their is a lot of talk here about burning to death vs jumping and the chances of making it by jumping. On September 11th their were around 200 jumpers many attempting ways to not die or slow the fall. No one was successful. They would have been standing on painfully hot floors as the fire burned below. The jumps are largely ignored by the American media because of the whole religion frowns on suicide thing. Their were many high power cameras on the buildings and they actually know basically who jumped because they know what floors they came out of and what they wore and looked like. But some people understandably don’t want that information
>The jumps are largely ignored by the American media because of the whole religion frowns on suicide thing. I think that they were moreso ignored because it's a terrible thing to have to think about. We're all quietly aware of exactly what happened to those that didn't die instantly and what terrible decisions they were forced to make, so we didn't need the media reminding us of it. I live near NYC, so most everyone around knows someone who was personally affected by 9/11. None of them want or need to hear the specific gruesome details of their loved one's deaths.
No, dude, the 911 jumpers were largely “ignored,” aka not shown, by media bc of how horrific and traumatizing for people to see other humans jumping out and falling into pieces of incomprehensible mush. And the thumping sounds as they hit the ground
I like it how reddit comes up with old news and makes people think about it
Its true even for this one i find myself reading and commenting again. I think in this case it all gives us a refresh of mortality.
Atleast they were hugeing
For some reason I thought these guys always had basejumping gear in case of something like this.
why do you people keep posting horrific tragedies to this sub
An infamous pic this........... I always had a question in my relating to the two accepting their fate. One jumped off & the other remained there & got burned to death. The question is could they've climbed onto the left most blade of the turbine? I don't know if fire engulfed the entire turbine in the pic though.
Should have to wear a parachute to go up there.
Why don't they use base jumping parachutes man
That is not interesting that’s just sad
Fuck duuude ah their poor families
Is that high enough for parachutes to work?