In December 2014, 75 years after the Pearl Harbor attack, two more men were killed at that famous site when they were working at Pearl Harbor’s Naval Inactive Ship Maintenance Facility. A five ton buoy fell on civilian contractors, two men were killed and two others were injured.

The workers were replacing a buoy and strengthening mooring lines on a ship called the USS Tarawa and the platform above the workers holding the buoy collapsed. Safety lines that were attached to the buoy failed and it fell onto the platforms below where the workers were. Witnesses saw the buoy falling and started warning the men, which is maybe why two of the men were injured and not killed. A company called Truston Technologies Inc. was working for the Navy and subcontracted Healy Tibbitts Builders Inc. who these men worked for.

After the incident investigations took place to determine how it happened and if there were any violations. Citations were issued to the Navy, Truston Technologies Inc. and Healy Tibbitts Builders Inc. for failing to protect workers from impalement hazards, failing to follow written Navy procedures, failing to provide safe access to the top of a concrete sinker, exceeding the load capacity of a wire rope sling and exposing a wire rope sling to a shock load. Contractors were not supposed to be working under that buoy in the first place. A more complete list of citations can be read here. All the workers were wearing hard hats but that was not enough to protect them from such a heavy object. Families of the workers who were killed or injured sued Healy Tibbits and Truston Technologies for negligence.

As a result of this incident the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is ordering the site to undergo safety upgrades to prevent further injuries or deaths.

The Honolulu area OSHA director, Jeffrey Romeo, said, “Navy personnel and contractors they hired should have taken a series of common-sense steps to prevent workers from facing dangerous conditions on-the-job. The best thing we can do to honor these fallen workers is to make sure similar accidents don’t happen in the future.”