Investigate a storm response near miss and review the fatigue controls

What is going on

During the storm response on Thursday 4 September a crew truck drove under a low voltage span with the elevated work platform boom partly raised, coming within one metre of the conductors, recorded as INC-2026-055. The crew had worked thirteen hours after a fatigue extension approved by the duty manager, and had been dispatched to a third fallen conductor job after two hours' notice. The dispatch records are on the work orders, the fatigue extension is noted on one work order but not the incident register, and the truck's boom stowed interlock had been reported faulty a week earlier. The General Manager wants the investigation and a review of the storm plan and the fitness for work policy before the next storm season.

Your brief

Investigate the near miss using the incident records, dispatch records, fatigue extensions and interviews, identify the contributing factors and root causes across fatigue management, dispatch practice and plant condition, propose corrective actions with owners and dates, and recommend changes to the storm and emergency response plan and the fitness for work policy.

Work through it

You do not need to do it all. Doing a few of these will show you what the work is like. Your ticks and notes stay on this device.

• Read the storm and network emergency response plan, the fitness for work and fatigue policy and the incident report form, and review INC-2026-055 and the related work orders for the storm night.
• Reconstruct the timeline of the crew's night from the work order dispatch records, the fatigue extension approval and the crew's report in times.
• Prepare interview questions and record interviews with the crew, the duty manager and the network controller on shift, covering the dispatch decisions, the extension and the boom interlock fault.
• Check the incident register and work orders for the earlier report of the faulty boom stowed interlock and establish why the truck was still in service.
• Analyse the contributing factors and root causes using a structured method, separating individual decisions from the system issues in the plan, the policy and plant maintenance.
• Propose corrective and preventive actions with owners and due dates, including changes to fatigue extension approval and recording, dispatch limits late in a shift and plant defect stand down rules.
• Update INC-2026-055 in the incident register with the findings and actions and set the status to Actions open.
• Draft the recommended amendments to the storm plan and the fitness for work policy and a summary for the General Manager.

What someone in this role would produce

• Investigation report with timeline, contributing factors and root causes
• Interview records
• Updated incident register entry with corrective actions, owners and dates
• Recommended amendments to the storm plan and the fitness for work policy
• Summary for the General Manager