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Firm fined £150,000 after electrician killed in mine by fan blades

HSE Close-up portrait of a person with short grey hair and glasses, wearing a suit and tie, standing outdoors with a blurred natural landscape of fields, trees, and hills in the background.HSE
Colin Thwaites was killed while working at Lochaline Quartz Sand's underground mine

A mining firm has been fined £150,000 over the "tragic and preventable" death of an electrician, who was caught in fan blades in the Highlands.

Colin Thwaites, 61, died at Lochaline Quartz Sand Ltd's underground mine on the Morvern Peninsula in October 2024.

He had been working near the large ventilation fan while attempting to restore power after Storm Ashleigh. A colleague found him trapped in the fan with fatal injuries.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) said there was "a series of serious failings" in how the fan had been modified, commissioned and maintained.

Kevin Wilson, HSE's chief inspector of mines and quarries, said: "Colin Thwaites was a highly experienced mining professional with decades of service.

"He should have gone home to his family that day. Our investigation found that when the fan was modified, the risks were not identified.

"This was a tragic and entirely preventable death."

HSE inspectors arrived at the site of Europe's only quartz sand mine on the day following Thwaites's death on 21 October 2024.

Quartz sand mined at the site is used for making glass.

Inspectors identified that the fan involved was one of two that had originally formed a single unit, before later being separated into two parts.

HSE Industrial test setup featuring a large circular panel mounted on a blue frame, with metal reinforcement bars and partially damaged wire mesh across the surface, inside a workshop with tools, pipes, and equipment in the background.HSE
Large areas of mesh were missing from the guard covering the fan blades

The HSE said that the hazards arising from this modification had "not been properly identified or managed".

It left the rotating parts of the fan much closer to its intake guard than was safe - just 43mm at the closest point.

The normal safety standard requires a distance of at least 200mm.

A makeshift guard had been manufactured on site to cover the fan blades.

It was made from two sheets of metal lattice mesh, which HSE inspectors determined was poorly designed.

The back end of the fan was left entirely unguarded.

HSE Large industrial ventilation fan mounted inside a wide underground tunnel or mine, with a metal ladder leaning against the wall beside it and cables running along the ground in a dimly lit environment.HSE
The other fan similar to the one involved – the two were originally part of one unit

Inspectors found the guard was in a "seriously degraded condition" with significant areas of mesh missing.

They said if the guard had been properly designed and maintained, it was likely it would have prevented Thwaites's death.

Lochlaine Quartz Sand Ltd, which has its head office registered to Ormskirk, Lancashire, pleaded guilty to breaching the Health and Safety at Work Act.

The HSE - the UK's national regulator for workplace health and safety - took enforcement action against the company, which employed a specialist mining consultancy to make improvements.

The company was fined £150,000 and told to pay a victim surcharge of £11,250 at Inverness Sheriff Court on Tuesday.