Lockout Tagout – Page 5 – Safety Engineering (SAFTENG)

Maintenance Tech By-Passes Guard Interlock – Machine Operator turned the machine from manual to auto and reactivated the machine, killing Tech ($145K)

August 15, 2025 / Free, Lockout Tagout, Lockout/Tagout Accidents (includes Machine Guarding), LOTO Accidents, OSHA Compliance / Bryan Haywood

At 11:00 a.m. on June 7, 2024, an employee, 50, working as a machinery maintenance technician for a frozen food manufacturer, was troubleshooting a ring remover since food trays were getting stuck. The employee bypassed the magnetic safety interlock gates and crawled underneath the conveyor. A coworker, the machine operator, was not aware that the […]

Line Break Gone Bad (Cutting into live NH3 pipe)

August 9, 2025 / Chemical Process Safety (PSM/RMP), Free, Lockout Tagout / Bryan Haywood / EPA RMP, OSHA Line Break, PSM

This stunt has to be one of the riskiest I have seen in my 30+ years in Process Safety. They knew it was a live line, but why it was live is anyone’s guess. It looks as if this may be a “Demolition” job without a pump down, or maybe the plant was just down

Worker Fatality During Attempted Removal of Blind Flange on Cooling Water System

July 27, 2025 / Free, Hazardous Materials, Lockout Tagout / Bryan Haywood

On October 21, 2015, two mechanical technicians were involved in an incident while attempting to remove a blind flange from supply piping on a Magnet Cooling Water (MCW) System. The mechanical technicians were assisting a welder in obtaining final measurements to make the final connections from the MCW system to a new Cell 14 cryostat

Butterfly valve(s) & energy isolation (NH3 process)

July 25, 2025 / Chemical Process Safety (PSM/RMP), Free, Hazardous Materials, Lockout Tagout / Bryan Haywood

Some industries’ RAGAGEPs will call out the risk of using a butterfly valve as an energy isolation device due to its propensity to “leak by”. In this incident, the valve catastrophically failed, releasing NH3, resulting in a worker and a contractor being hospitalized. I do not know if the valve was locked out, but that

LOTO Fatality – Belt Conveyor (MSHA)

July 9, 2025 / Free, Lockout Tagout, LOTO Accidents, OSHA Compliance / Bryan Haywood

On March 5, 2025, at 10:55 a.m., a welder, 57, with over seven (7) years of mining experience, died when he became entangled in a belt conveyor tail roller. The accident occurred because the mine operator did not de-energize and block the No. 12 belt conveyor against hazardous motion. GENERAL INFORMATION The mine is a

A “lockable” automated valve

July 6, 2025 / Free, Lockout Tagout, OSHA Compliance / Bryan Haywood

Recently, we had the never-ending debate about locking out valves being used as energy isolation devices. Somewhere/Sometime ago, a vicious rumor/practice found some legs, and we began seeing the practice during our audits. The unsafe and non-OSHA-compliant practice of disconnecting the power source from a Fail-Safe Closed valve and locking out the valve’s power source

Why NH3 must be evacuated to “reclassify” a Condenser from a PRCS to a NON-PRCS

June 26, 2025 / Chemical Process Safety (PSM/RMP), Free, Hazardous Materials, Lockout Tagout, Permit Required Confined Spaces / Bryan Haywood

I have debated this many times and finally just gave up on the industry to do the right thing. And yes, there is a line item in NFPA 350, that I have requested the NFPA to address. But for me, in all my years, we would evacuate the NH3 from the condenser coils and lock

Zero equals Zero, not 0.27 psig

April 27, 2025 / Chemical Process Safety (PSM/RMP), Free, Lockout Tagout / Bryan Haywood

A 25,000-gallon tank used to store nitrogen or carbon dioxide at 250 psig needed maintenance that required the removal of a four-foot diameter, 500 lb manhole cover. The tank was evacuated to 0 psig using the manually operated relief valve. Once the workers no longer heard air flowing through the valve, they released the stick

LOTO Safety Myth #4 – Contractors

April 14, 2025 / Free, Lockout Tagout / Bryan Haywood / Contractors, LOTO

1910.147 says the following regarding contractors performing LOTO inside our facilities: 1910.147(f)(2)(i)Whenever outside servicing personnel are to be engaged in activities covered by the scope and application of this standard, the on-site employer and the outside employer shall inform each other of their respective lockout or tagout procedures.1910.147(f)(2)(ii)The on-site employer shall ensure that his/her employees

How many locks do we need to Lockout a Double Block & Bleed arrangement

March 23, 2025 / Chemical Process Safety (PSM/RMP), Free, Lockout Tagout / Bryan Haywood / Double Block & Bleed, LOTO

Several clients design Double Block and Bleed (DB&B) isolation into their process, especially when they know they will regularly enter certain Permit-Required Confined Spaces (PRCS). When these DB&B arrangements are part of the design, the isolation valves and the bleed valve are near one another. This allows us to use a single lock with some

LOTO Safety Myth #3 (Training/Inspections)

March 23, 2025 / Free, Lockout Tagout / Bryan Haywood / Control of Hazardous Energy, LOTO, OSHA

We often encounter an organization that conducts LOTO training annually. They do this because they believe OSHA requires annual LOTO training. However, the standard, 1910.147, does NOT require annual training! The standard requires each authorized employee to be “inspected” annually. If they fail that inspection, the standard requires the authorized employee to be re-trained. OSHA

LOTO Safety Myth #2 (Minor Servicing Exception)

March 11, 2025 / Free, Lockout Tagout / Bryan Haywood / LOTO, minor servicing exception

Many folks will focus on ONLY three (3) criteria for applying this “exception” to OSHA LOTO standard 1910.147. And these (3) criteria are just opening the gates to LOTO Hell. Far too often we find the “exception” has become the rule and LOTO has become the exception. So what are the FIVE (5) criteria we