Offshore - Elevated cabin floor windows

Health and Safety Executive - Safety notice

Issue

Potential for falls from height through non-load bearing glass floor windows in elevated cabins due to lack of fixed secure grating.

Outline of the problem

There is a potentially widespread fall from height hazard with elevated cabins that have non-load bearing glass floor windows and removable floor gratings. Removing gratings creates an opening through which workers could fall and sustain major injury.

The glass floor windows may be present in elevated cabins to provide improved visibility for conducting various activities (typically crane operations or drilling).

HSE is investigating one incident and is aware of another outside Great Britain that have resulted in fatal falls from height as a result of removing gratings to enable maintenance and / or cleaning of the glass floor windows.

Similar ‘potential’ situations were identified during routine HSE inspections of offshore installations in an elevated drillers cabin and crane cabin. In both cases, corrective and preventive action of securing the gratings reduced the risk of harm to people.

Please note, industry have published multiple alerts on this subject:

• IADC - International Association of Drilling Contractors published alert 25-9 on the IADC website
• SCiS - High value learning (HVL) crane cabin inspections on Step Change in Safety’s website in January 2026, and
• SCiS - Safety Moment: Hidden Hazard - Crane Cabin Floor Windows crane cabin inspections on Step Change in Safety’s website
• IMCA - Death of seafarer due to fall from crane cabin on the International Marine Contractors Association's website

However, HSE continues to find issues during routine inspections, hence this safety notice has been issued to reinforce the statutory legislative requirements.

Unsecured gratings, industry design standard versus legal statutory provision

Both API 2C, Offshore Pedestal-mounted Cranes and BS EN 13852-1:2025, Offshore cranes - General-purpose offshore cranes design standards (among others) require glass flooring sections to be covered. However, these standards are not explicit in requiring gratings be secure.

As these cabins are typically used for operation of machines on offshore installations such as ‘cranes’ or ‘drilling equipment’ they are considered to be work equipment within the scope of The Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations (PUWER) 1998.

PUWER regulation 11 for Dangerous Parts of Machinery is explicit under 3(e) in that guards or protection devices shall not be easily bypassed or disabled. 3(h) states “be so constructed or adapted that they allow operations necessary to fit or replace parts and for maintenance work, restricting access so that it is allowed only to the area where the work is to be carried out and, if possible, without having to dismantle the guard or protection device”.

Paragraph 141 of PUWER states for dangerous part “The term ‘dangerous part’ has been established in health and safety law through judicial decisions. In practice, this means that if a piece of work equipment could cause injury, while being used in a foreseeable way, it can be considered a dangerous part”.

The gratings used in equipment this way are considered ‘guards’ and removal of gratings creates a ‘dangerous part’ in that a fall from height is credible from a non-load bearing glass / window.

Gratings used under these circumstances can be related to secure gratings in walkways in offshore installations which are secured to the associated steelwork by design using retaining clips to prevent inadvertent disturbance.

Work at Height Regulations apply if removal for cleaning or maintenance

When floor gratings protecting non-load bearing glass floor windows are removed for cleaning / maintenance, the Work at Height Regulations 2005 apply as typically a person may be able to fall through the opening.

Specifically, Regulation 6(3) for the avoidance of risks from work at height requires employers to take suitable and sufficient measures to prevent, so far as is reasonably practicable, any person falling a distance liable to cause personal injury.

Warnings and signage

Non-load bearing glass floor windows used on elevated cabins requires warnings in the form of signage to be installed in line with the requirements of Regulation 24 of PUWER.

Furthermore, Regulation 9(3)(a) of the Work at Height regulations 2005 states that “Where any person at work may pass across or near, or work on, from or near, a fragile surface, every employer shall ensure that — (a) prominent warning notices are so far as is reasonably practicable affixed at the approach to the place where the fragile surface is situated.”

Other considerations

Duty holders and suppliers should also consider the potential of persons applying own body weight into “side windows” within elevated cabins to ensure measures are in place to prevent a fall from height should they be non-load bearing.

Action required

Duty holders of elevated cabins must:

1. Ensure any gratings to cover non-load bearing glass floor windows in any elevated cabins are ‘secure’ for normal day to day operation to prevent easy disturbance and removal creating a potential fall from height hazard. ‘Secure’ means the requirement for tools and fixings to be used to remove an item.
2. Carry out a risk assessment of all activities that may be conducted in elevated cabins (such as cleaning and or maintenance) as currently designed. The risk assessment must provide a demonstration of controls in place to prevent the hazard of a fall from height from occurring (bottom or side windows). This should be in line with the principles of prevention (elimination, substitution, engineered controls, administrative controls, personal protective equipment). Subsequently take action as necessary from the risk assessment to prevent the potential hazard from occurring. This may result in physical changes to improve the design (for example, providing protective bars under the cabin or providing fall arrest harness attachment points).
3. Place warning signs that are clear, easy to understand and unmistakeable adjacent to non-load bearing glass floor windows in any elevated cabins to highlight the danger of a potential fall from height hazard should the gratings be removed.

Suppliers of elevated cabins who:

1. Provide or support the ongoing use of elevated cabins as equipment in Great Britain to the offshore industry should work with duty holders to ensure they comply with the legal statutory provisions of PUWER including, but not limited to, Regulation 11 and 24.
2. No longer provide support but are aware of their use in Great Britain should make reasonable efforts to contact those companies that are currently using elevated cabins alerting them to this concern.

Guidance

API Specification 2C Offshore Pedestal-mounted Cranes on the API website

BS ISO 13852-1 Cranes. Offshore cranes - General-purpose offshore cranes on the BSI website

BS EN 13557 Cranes. Controls and control station on the BSI website

Relevant legal documents

On legislation.gov.uk:

• section 2(1), section 3(1) and section 6 of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974
• Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998
• Work at Height Regulations 2005
• Management of Health & Safety at Work Regulations 1999