Cal/OSHA OKs Disney’s Revised Rules, Training

Cal/OSHA, the state’s worker-safety agency, gave its blessing Tuesday to Disneyland’s new operating procedures and equipment for Columbia, the sailing ship attraction where a tourist was fatally injured in December.

Jim Brown, the Anaheim manager for Cal/OSHA, met with Walt Disney Co. officials to discuss the improvements, which include signal bells to help workers on the ship communicate and the installation of a speedometer.

Satisfied, Brown asked only that the company provide a copy of the new procedures to Cal/OSHA, which had cited the theme park for equipment and training violations, agency spokesman Dean Fryer said.

“Disneyland has come into compliance and has abated” the alleged violations, Fryer said. “We have had discussions with them about their abatement. They are in the process of gathering the training and procedural information to send to us, the verification we need for our records.”

Disneyland intends to put the Columbia back in service carrying parkgoers this summer. Until then, it will sail only during nighttime “Fantasmic” shows, which feature Peter Pan battling pirates.

Fryer and Walt Disney Co. spokesman Ray Gomez didn’t provide details of the meeting, which Gomez described as “good and cooperative.”

Gomez said the company hadn’t decided whether to appeal the agency’s citations and its $12,500 fine, the maximum it could impose for the two “serious” violations.

The accident occurred Christmas Eve, when a 9-pound metal cleat was torn from the bow by a nylon line as the ship approached the dock too fast.

The cleat, used to moor the ship, whipped into a crowd, killing a Washington state man and injuring his wife and the Disney employee who attached the line. Cal/OSHA investigators said Disney had failed to train her properly in docking the Columbia and that she didn’t follow procedures by letting the boat overshoot the dock when it came in too fast.

The employee, assistant manager Christine Carpenter, was filling in for a regular worker because of a scheduling gap.

Carpenter told investigators she had received hands-on training for the Mark Twain, another big ship that sails the same Disneyland canal, but never for the Columbia. She said she had helped other employees dock the Columbia before the day of the accident, but had never before attempted to dock it on her own.

Disney has maintained Carpenter did receive hands-on training. It said previously that by the time Cal/OSHA’s report came out March 25, the agency’s concerns already had been addressed through mechanical changes, new safety and operational procedures and related training.

In the past, employees piloting Columbia would cut power and glide to a near-stop at the dock, or reverse the propellers if it was going too fast. Dock employees used their experience to judge if the ship was coming in too fast, workers told Cal/OSHA. If it was, they let it pass by and back up before putting on the mooring line, which was attached to a post on the dock.

The changes include using the bells and standardized markings along the “river” as signals during docking, stopping the ship completely before mooring it, and passing the mooring line down to the worker on the dock to attach to the mooring post.

All employees, including managers, now receive full hands-on training before working attractions at Disneyland, Gomez said, adding: “That’s not to say we admit that Christi wasn’t trained properly.”

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Death Prompts New Procedures

Disneyland plans to change the docking procedures for the sailing ship Columbia in the wake of a fatal accident at the attraction in December. A look at the changes:

OLD

* As ship sails into port, dock worker tosses rope onto cleat

* Rope secured to mooring

* Dock worker decides if ship moving too fast to throw rope

NEW

* After ship docks, bowman tosses rope to dock worker who attaches rope to mooring

* Rope secured to deck

* Deck hands use bell signals to ensure boat stops before rope attached

Source: Ray Gomez, Disneyland publicity

Graphics reporting by BRADY MacDONALD / Los Angeles Times