Antidote to a dull week

Last fortnight I complaint in my blog that life was getting boring and routine. But the day just after that something more interesting happened. At least it was interesting to me.

I got a call to go outstation immediately, to investigate the root cause of an electrical accident in a chemical plant. Yes, I am an Electrical Engineer and have all the credentials, I am now semi-retired after working for nearly 3 decades in the industry.

Anyway, it was quite late at night and the place of the accident was over 400 km away. I did not really want to go there immediately and I still have other jobs to do locally. I could not just pack up and go to the scene of accident to do the investigation. I tried to find excuses but I could not find any. So I said I will send someone to the scene but the caller still wanted me. I felt proud. So I told him that I will drive tomorrow and then pick him up and travel on with him. He suggested that I go by air. I did not think about that.

I immediately called someone I knew at the accident scene. But the person who relayed to me about the accident was still too panicky, he was directly involved in the accident. Anyway I got some info about the accident from him. And I called a person in Kuala Lumpur seeking advice on the rules on such investigation. Actually I wanted a second opinion. From the story I related to him he was very clear as to what happened at the scene. He said surely when the men were asked to work on the electrical equipment it must be dead, so what is the problem?. He said to tell them that if they had issued the permit to work on the equipment then the person issuing the permit is fully responsible.

I got to think about it further, and having slept that night I decided the next morning to go by air to the scene of the accident. I called the local airline, booked my ticket and got the 10.40 am flight that morning. Having collected the flight tickets at their local ticketing office, I asked my wife to send me to the airport. I checked in and waited. And the plane was late by about 3 hours and I got very restless. Luckily though the airline company gave us the delayed passengers a meal voucher each. I was supposed to be fasting that day but because of the waiting and the delays I got emotionally upset and I became very hungry so I broke my fast. I presented the meal voucher at the canteen in the airport and had my meal. It was not really a good meal, just fried mee (egg noodles) and iced tea.

3 hours later the plane arrived and I flew to Kuala Lumpur, arriving there 40 minutes later. In Kuala Lumpur I tried to find the earliest flight to my destination. No seat available until 7.40 pm that evening. So another 5 hours wait. And I had to change my plane ticket as I had booked earlier to a place closer to the scene of the accident, and there was no more earlier than 8.00 pm flight to that original place then. And waiting to change the ticket was about another hour, it seems that day was a very day for the airline. Many planes got delayed and most of their bookings for domestic flights have been fully booked and the waiting list may be as long as another plane load in most flights. And I do not think the airline has got the double number of planes currently for domestic flights.

Luckily I have already confirm booked earlier for the 7.40 pm flight, and so I had no problem getting a seat by that flight.

Looking around at the airport I realised how lucky I was even at getting into the 7.40 pm flight. Many may not even have seats yet. Was it because there were too many Middle Eastern tourists around booking all the local flights seats. There were actually many Middle Eastern tourist, and they all seemed to carry large number of big pieces of luggage, as if they were on job transfer to Malaysia. The whole family and their servants were with them. No wonder so may pieces of large luggage. I cannot complain really, they bring in a lot of foreign exchange to Malaysia. And I must comment the airport authority of even announcing all announcements in English, Bahasa Malaysia and Arabic. It used to be in Japanese as well but that day I noticed that Japanese was not used.

I had my MacDonald meal at the airport, went into the departure lounge of the airport and waited. I got into the plane all right, many Middle East tourists included and we arrived safely at the next airport about 40 minutes later. Just imagine, it took me about 12 hours to travel over the distance when I was actually on the plane for just about 80 minutes. Do you then call plane travel efficient? But I suppose I cannot complain, had I traveled by car I would have to traveled for over 400 km on highways and paying road tolls as well. It would have been a very tiring journey, not to mention the drive for which I may have to contribute my energy to driving the vehicle, not over the whole distance by at least part of the distance. I may not just let my friend drive, he would have been tired as well.

Arriving at that airport, I got a taxi. I must comment that the taxi was a new vehicle, Ford Lynx 2.0 and it was a smooth 1/2 hour drive. And the taxi driver was quite chatty and I thank him for being so. If he had been a quiet type, it would have been really a boring taxi ride, and after the 12 hours torture of waiting for flights I felt a needed to talk to someone. At least with someone I could relate my flight delay torture, he was the listener I needed. I suppose I was the listener he needed as well, to tell his life story. It seemed that he had many relatives in the State of Pahang, the place where I started the journey this morning and he is very familiar with the State. In fact he could straight away tell me where I came from by listening to my Malay slang. At least we had a common interest.

Having arrived at the hotel I contacted my friend who was already there,. After a shower we had meals together and we call the people involved for a briefing session that night as we have to go to the scene of the accident early the next morning. I did not get to go to bed until after well past midnight.

The next morning we went to visit the victim of the accident at the local hospital. He got burnt in the face, first skin layer turning black of burnt marks due to the electrical flash over, burnt on his right hand and two fingers on his left hand. In my opinion he was very lucky to get away with such light injury due to an electrical flash over at 11 kV. He was recovering fast and he seemed none the worst for his injuries. Anyway he already had his wife and children in town; he was about 31 years old.

We went to the scene of the accident after that and saw the electrical circuit concerned. I thought again that the victim was lucky, he had followed most of the rules of electrical safety. His superior mentioned that the superior had tested the circuit before allowing the victim to work on it. And the victim somehow was also cautious, he already earthed one end of his cable before attempting to connect to the part of the circuit where he was supposed to work on. There was a flash over though, and the victim somehow was suitably clothed in protective coverall but he did not wear rubber gloves nor face shield. He got injured on his face and his hands but the protective coverall protested him; the coverall was burnt in some part but did not penetrate to his skin.

Asking more questions, we got the answers that the circuit where the victim was supposed to work on was still alive. This was admitted by the owners Technician concerned and it was also admitted that the 11 kV switch gear for that incoming cable was not ‘off’ nor was it racked out. And the owners Technician with the working team was different from that who did the electrical isolation switching and the person signing the permits were different from those doing the switching. An unfortunate procedure I thought. In addition it was also unfortunate that the head Technician of the working team did not detect the live cables even after testing it. All these info however we obtained the next morning after the visit to the scene of the accident, when interviewing all people involved.

An unfortunate accident, luckily not fatal. A procedure of switching electrical circuit not fully controlled. And my bad experience of having to take delayed airplane flights.