Flatiron Construction: OSHA inspections and violations

Incident on Jul 1, 2010: Contact with buried conductor thru backhoe

At 8:30 a.m., on July 1, 2010, Employee #1 was operating a backhoe for the Flati ron Construction Corp. The company was a heavy construction contractor specializ ing in paving. It was working on a new taxiway at Los Angeles International Airp ort, which had to be thick enough to support new jumbo jets. The finished surfac e was to be nineteen inches thick. As part of the preparation work, an old aspha lt-covered taxiway was being demolished. The area had been marked by "Dig Alert" to indicate buried electrical lines. There were electrical vaults in front of t he tractor about twenty yards away, to the right of the tractor about 3 yards aw ay, and behind the tractor about fifty yards away. The asphalt had been marked i n red where the wires entered and exited the vaults, and on the asphalt in front of the tractor. There was no marking, however, on the side of the vault to the operator's right to indicate any lines entering it. The job being performed at t he time of the accident was "potholing" for soil samples to test for chemical co ntamination. Because the lines entering the nearby vault had not been marked, th e operator assumed there were no cables where he was digging. As he dug, he cont acted conductors energized at 34.5 kilovolts approximately twelve inches below t he surface. He had been well trained, and as a result he stayed in the cab of hi s tractor until emergency crews deenergized the conductors. This took approximat ely 3 hours. Employee #1 was not injured.