AN AIRCRAFT maintenance company has been sentenced for safety failures after three workers were injured in separate falls at Lasham Airfield.

ATC (Lasham) has been fined £35,000 and ordered to pay £32,430 in costs after admitting three breaches of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1984.

Salisbury Crown Court heard that the first incident on July 9, 2011 at ATC (Lasham), which has an international client base, involved an employee falling five metres from an aircraft to the runway tarmac while repairing a faulty door, and suffered what were initially thought to be life-threatening injuries.

The 60-year-old from Alton had been helping to fix an aircraft door fault that had been detected during crew safety checks.

During the repair, the door was opened by the worker and it flew out under pressure.

As he was holding onto the door, he was pulled out of the plane and plunged five metres to the ground because there were no safeguards in place to prevent him falling.

He suffered a broken right thigh and ankle and needed rods and pins inserting to help him recover, before he was able to return to work.

Less than three weeks later on July 27, 2011, a contractor broke a knee after falling three metres.

The 48-year-old, from Wootton Bassett, in Swindon, fell as he attempted to climb down from inside a Boeing 757 wing fuel tank.

He was standing on a scissor lift when a when a weld inside gave way, sending him falling to the ground below.

The third incident, on November 30, 2011, involved an employee falling from an aircraft stand that had no guardrail between the aircraft and the stand steps.

The 67-year-old, from Ascot, in Berkshire, fractured a thumb in three places.

All three incidents were investigated by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), which prosecuted ATC (Lasham) for three safety breaches.

The court heard HSE identified that in all three incidents ATC had failed to provide safe plant and a safe system of work for the three men.

They found a lack of safe procedures for working at height, provision of unsuitable and unmaintained equipment, and general poor management.

HSE served a number of prohibition notices on ATC, halting certain areas of work and issued improvement notices requiring better working practices.

HSE inspector Kelly Nichols said: “Three workers have suffered painful injuries owing to inadequate safe systems of work employed by ATC (Lasham) – which is particularly disappointing given it is a major company working in a particularly safety-critical sector.

“The company’s management of health and safety was extremely poor in many areas but particularly in their approach to working at height. Three falls occurred in a relatively short period and these could have resulted in even more serious injuries.

“Working at height needs careful planning and organisations, and part of that is selecting and using the right type of equipment, which is properly maintained and safe.”