February 13, 2010

Reacting in an emergency - Lessons from the Hudson River Landing

On 15th January, 2009, an airbus flight suffered bird hits on both engines after take off. The pilots had to react quickly and they landed the plane safely on the Hudson river thus saving lives. Split second decisions had to be taken and they took the right decisions. A beautiful simulation of the incident is given in this youtube link.
In a chemical plant emergency, all the years of training and experience will come into play. A wrong decision taken during the emergency could lead to an unsafe condition. Of course, if you have your shutdown systems working well, they will automatically shutdown the plant safely. But there are many other things the DCS operator has to do after a shutdown. This is where his training comes in. How are you training your plant operators to handle emergencies? Is experience from actual emergencies shared and lessons learnt? In India, many of us do not take mock drills seriously. Your lives may depend on it!
Plant operators and shift engineers are the first line of defense against a catastrophe and are you investing in their training?

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