CAYUGA MINE — Accidents

Total: 267 accidents | Fatalities: 1

Date Classification Injury Days Lost Narrative
03/03/2021 MACHINERY NO DYS AWY FRM WRK,NO RSTR ACT None Employee was using a drill press to drill out a hole larger in a bearing housing. The bearing housing was in a vice on the drill press table. The bit caught in the hole and pulled the housing out of t...
01/25/2021 HOISTING ACCIDENT ONLY None #3 Hoist skip and gate proximity switch had malfunctioned. Evac all ee's out #2, all out safely. Repairs completed at 3:15pm.
10/31/2020 HANDLING OF MATERIALS DAYS RESTRICTED ACTIVITY ONLY 6d restricted Employee was mounting troughing rollers on belt structure. While tightening one side of a trougher, the opposite side slid off the structure causing it to swing down and hit the employee on the right...
10/10/2020 HOISTING DYS AWY FRM WRK & RESTRCTD ACT 159d lost, 21d restricted A miner was working in the #1 production shaft. While being tied off to a divider, the employee stepped back onto the workdeck and radioed the hoist operator to go up. The employee forgot to transfer...
09/06/2020 HOISTING ACCIDENT ONLY None Test trip of back up generator being performed, tranformer that powers hoist shorted out. Skip was surface level. There were zero men aboard the skip.
07/27/2020 HOISTING ACCIDENT ONLY None Brake transducer, manifold failed. Manufacturer called to diagnose, changed out while evac took place out of the #2 skip. All miners were accounted for on surface at 4:40pm. 4:45pm #3 was back up and...
07/21/2020 HOISTING ACCIDENT ONLY None Test trips of #2 resulted in multiple trip out of skip. #2 brought to surface, damage to bonnet discovered. Falling debris struck top of #2 causing damage. Bonnet and rope repaired, test trips passed,...
07/10/2020 MACHINERY DAYS RESTRICTED ACTIVITY ONLY 1d restricted Employee in hi-lift, booming down was struck in the back of the neck by 3/4"" socket that fell from above.
06/27/2020 HOISTING ACCIDENT ONLY None Test trip was planned for hoist on generator power. Power was switched over and 15kv 480-280 transformer arced. This rendered the #3 hoist inop. MSHA was called and controlled evac took place out the...
06/16/2020 FALL OF ROOF OR BACK DYS AWY FRM WRK & RESTRCTD ACT 5d lost, 53d restricted Employee was working in #1 shaft, standing on the work deck for #2 hoist. A piece of rock was falling down the shaft and ricocheted off a divider into the work deck. The rock landed on top of an emplo...
06/11/2020 FALLING/SLIDING/ROLLING MATERIALS DAYS RESTRICTED ACTIVITY ONLY 42d restricted Employee was stepping off the #2 chippy work deck onto the landing at #1 shaft when a piece of salt fell and hit them on the right shoulder. The employee finished the shift and 2 weeks later wanted to...
06/10/2020 HOISTING ACCIDENT ONLY None Faulty brake accumulator, low on charge, recharged to 1500 per manu. specs. Refilled oil, test trips, static brake test, all tested okay. Returned to service at 3:10pm. Performed controlled evac. All...
04/24/2020 HANDLING OF MATERIALS NO DYS AWY FRM WRK,NO RSTR ACT None Installing motor in fan housing, using scaling bar to align the shaft through the opening of the fan housing. ee dropped key from keyway, went to pick up, pulled hand through the output shaft, hand sl...
02/25/2020 HANDLING OF MATERIALS NO DYS AWY FRM WRK,NO RSTR ACT None Employee was working on a scaler. At some point the employee's forearm contacted a sharp object on the machine. As the employee started to remove their gloves and suit, they discovered a cut on the in...
12/12/2019 HOISTING ACCIDENT ONLY None Skip kicked out at 900ft breaker tripped. Wire that was not in use shorted out air pressure switch. Wire unhooked, capped off. Ran test trips and skip was back online at 3:00pm. No one was on the skip...
12/06/2019 HOISTING ACCIDENT ONLY None Skip parked at landing (estop engaged), hydraulic pumps started. The hoist operator saw that faults came up & wouldn't clear. We troubleshot, but no fix. Called our elec. eng. & manufacturer. Manufact...
11/18/2019 ELECTRICAL ACCIDENT ONLY None Power had dropped to portion of the mine. Upon investigation it was found that a transformer had gotten hot and tripped out the power. It was hot, there was smoke, coils were glowing, but not on fire....
10/31/2019 HANDTOOLS (NONPOWERED) NO DYS AWY FRM WRK,NO RSTR ACT None An Matco Electric contractor was using a post pounder to drive rebar into the ground at the #4 shaft location. Upon lifting the post pounder up, the EE lifted to high causing the rebar to come outside...
10/14/2019 INUNDATION ACCIDENT ONLY None While drilling in Unit 12, a small pocket of methane was encountered. This lead to a reading above 2 ppm at the end of a drain hose from the drill. The methane cleared from the area within seconds, re...
08/30/2019 HOISTING ACCIDENT ONLY None On August 30th we evacuated the mine due to a malfunction on the #3 cage chairing mechanism. While chairing the cage, one of the dogs went over center and bound in the dog box. There is a brass guide...
07/29/2019 HOISTING ACCIDENT ONLY None While beginning test trips for 2nd shift, the hoist encoder reset the cage location to 0 while the cage was near the bottom of the shaft. The encoder was found to be working properly once reset.
07/23/2019 HOISTING ACCIDENT ONLY None #3 hoist unexpectedly stopped. The solenoid valve for the West pinion brake lost power causing brakes to engage. An electrical short in the power connection to the solenoid valve caused the failure.
04/04/2019 HANDTOOLS (NONPOWERED) NO DYS AWY FRM WRK,NO RSTR ACT None A contractor received a laceration to the back of their hand when their 1 & 13/16"" wrench slipped off of a nut. This resulting in their gloved hand striking a threaded stud nearby. The contractor r...
02/07/2019 HOISTING ACCIDENT ONLY None The DC Loop contactor on the #3 hoist failed due to an electrical fault that could not be repaired within 30 minutes. Since the #3 hoist was not operable during that time, there was not 2 means of egr...
01/24/2019 HOISTING ACCIDENT ONLY None A power outage to Lansing Township, which included the mine, occurred. During a controlled evacuation of the mine, the generator for #3 hoist had trouble starting and people began to evacuate through...
10/12/2018 FIRE ACCIDENT ONLY None While loading the face with explosives the air compressor on the powder trailer unexpectantly caught fire. The nearby employees quickly shut off the tractor powering the compressor and made the decisi...
09/21/2018 ELECTRICAL ACCIDENT ONLY None The a phase 13.8kV primary with 4160V secondary transformer shorted in the coils. This caused a small fire which was extinguished within minutes. The a phase and b phase coils were destroyed.
09/20/2018 HOISTING ACCIDENT ONLY None The 12 Silicon Controlled Rectifiers for the #3 hoist failed due to age and usage over time. New units were on hand that we were able to replace these with. It took time troubleshooting the hoists el...
06/17/2018 HOISTING ACCIDENT ONLY None Hoist drive fault that operator was unable to clear. Drive fault was only able to clear by cycling power to the drive. Drive processor board was replaced to original which allowed operator to clear fa...
06/17/2018 HOISTING ACCIDENT ONLY None The hoist would not reset to stay running. Troubleshooting began and it was eventually found that there was no control power to the hoist motor contactor. Troubleshooting found that the base of the dr...
11/22/2017 HOISTING ACCIDENT ONLY None #3 hoist load cells lost calibration during test trip that started at 5:30am. Troubleshooting began at 5:56am. GL Tiley was contacted via phone while third shift was evacuating the mine with the emerg...
09/06/2017 HOISTING ACCIDENT ONLY None Hoist was bringing employee out of mine when it tripped out. Troubleshooting began, Tiley was contacted & asked us to try connections on control board. Switched from fiber to ethernet connection, comm...
07/06/2017 HOISTING ACCIDENT ONLY None #3 hoist tripped out and would not move from the collar position. Cycling power to the drive was needed in order to get the hoist to move. The drive was returned to all original parts following the c...
07/05/2017 HOISTING ACCIDENT ONLY None Employee was preparing to send supplies underground via the #3 hoist. As soon as the operator moved the hoist's joystick to send the cage underground the hoist tripped out. Shortly after this MSHA wa...
04/05/2017 HOISTING ACCIDENT ONLY None Sending supplies into the mine via the #3 cage w/ 5 ton overhead hoist. The material sled was halfway out of the cage at the landing when the springs around the chain/hook assembly became entangled in...
03/30/2017 HOISTING ACCIDENT ONLY None Our facility experienced a power surge causing the power to trip in areas underground and on surface. The Tiley Brake Regulator (TBR) unit in #1 hoist tripped at this time. This caused the #1 hoist...
03/15/2017 HOISTING ACCIDENT ONLY None Hoist operator was hoisting in auto when the hoist stopped with the South skip loaded at the bottom bc of a brake fault. The operator reset the fault and attempted to lower the loaded skip. After seve...
03/08/2017 HOISTING ACCIDENT ONLY None During #3 hoist test trip, the load cell did not trip as expected. Supervisor decided to evacuate the mine via the chippy. MSHA and GL Tiley were contacted. GL Tiley discovered that the slack rope was...
03/08/2017 HOISTING ACCIDENT ONLY None While # 3 hoist operator was doing a full test trip, the load cell system failed to work. GL Tiley was called as well as MSHA. After investigation, GL Tiley raised the set point of the system up to 7,...
03/05/2017 HOISTING ACCIDENT ONLY None Sunday night, #3 hoist skip was found to not sound right. It was noticed that the brass slider on the back side of the dogs was twisted and bent causing the dog to bind and not retract. The mine was e...
01/29/2017 HANDTOOLS (NONPOWERED) DAYS RESTRICTED ACTIVITY ONLY 3d restricted Employee was making holes in an old belt used for skirting in NW2B/NW2A transfer. Employee was wearing gloves and used a hole punch with a 3 lb hammer to cut holes. Employee was in the process of driv...
01/27/2017 MACHINERY NO DYS AWY FRM WRK,NO RSTR ACT None As the bolter wrench was tightening the bolt in the hole, the bolt was a spinner and did not properly take in the hole. As the wrench was lowered, the bolt came almost all the way out of the hole. Whe...
01/25/2017 HOISTING ACCIDENT ONLY None Around 11am 1 ladder rung was found to be broken in the #3 mancage. The ladder is used to exit the cage in case of emergency. The decision was made to evac the mine until the ladder could be repaire...
01/17/2017 HOISTING ACCIDENT ONLY None During the test trip of 2 hoist the load cell fault did not trip the hoist when chairing the cage as it should have. The weight was not low enough to trip the hoist. GL Tiley was called and remotely a...
01/07/2017 HOISTING ACCIDENT ONLY None At the end of the shift the hoist operator was not able to get the brakes on #3 hoist to release. The supervisor was called and they began to troubleshoot. When it was realized that it would take mor...
12/15/2016 HOISTING ACCIDENT ONLY None While performing test trips on #1 hoist, the slack rope knocker got pulled and would not reset. It was found that the switch was broken causing the hoist to be down. The decision was made to evacuate...
11/22/2016 HOISTING ACCIDENT ONLY None At 5:30am there was an electrical arc in our substation & at 2 NYSEG switch locations. UG power dropped due to the arcing & surface power was disconnected purposefully. NYSEG arrived at ~9:30am to in...
08/30/2016 HOISTING ACCIDENT ONLY None At 11:45 pm an employee noticed a hydraulic leak and found a crack in the hydraulic block of the break unit of the #1 hoist. So, the hoist went down until the hydraulic block was replaced by a new one...
08/17/2016 HOISTING ACCIDENT ONLY None The hoist operator was doing the pre-shift test trip and was getting incorrect slack rope faults on the load cells. Once on site the engineer investigated and found a loose wire in the control box of...
08/10/2016 HOISTING ACCIDENT ONLY None The fresh water solenoid valve shorted the controls system for the #2 hoist.