A HAMPSHIRE aircraft maintenance company has today been fined £35,000 over safety failures after three workers were injured in falls at an airfield.

The first incident at ATC (Lasham) Ltd, saw an employee fall five metres from an aircraft door to the runway tarmac while repairing a faulty door. His injuries were at first thought to be life-threatening.

Less than three weeks later, a contractor, broke a knee after falling three metres when a weld gave way on a scissor lift.

Another employee fell from an aircraft stand that had no guardrail and fractured a thumb in three places.

The incidents at Lasham Airfield, on July 9 and 27, and November 30 2011, were investigated by the Health and Safety Executive, which prosecuted the firm at Salisbury Crown Court.

The court was told the first worker, then 60, from Alton, had been helping to fix an aircraft door fault that had been detected during crew safety checks.

During the repair, the door was opened by the worker and it flew out under pressure. As he was holding onto the door, he was pulled out of the plane and plunged five metres to the ground as there were no safeguards in place.

He suffered a broken right thigh and ankle and needed rods and pins inserting to help him recover. He has since been able to return to work.

Later the same month, a contractor, 48, from Wootton Bassett, Swindon, fell as he attempted to climb down from inside a Boeing 757 wing fuel tank. He was standing on a scissor lift when a weld in the lift gave way, plunging him to the ground.

The final of the injured three, an employee then aged 67, from Ascot, Berkshire, sustained multiple fracture to his thumb as he fell from an unprotected part of an aircraft platform.

The court heard HSE identified that in all three incidents ATC had failed to provide safe plant and a safe system of work. There was a lack of safe procedures for working at height, provision of unsuitable and unmaintained equipment, and general poor management.

After the incidents, HSE had served a number of prohibition notices halting certain work and improvement notices requiring better working practices.

ATC (Lasham) Ltd was fined a total of £35,000 and ordered to pay £32,430 in costs after admitting three breaches of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.

After the hearing, HSE Inspector Kelly Nichols said: “Three workers have suffered painful injuries owing to inadequate safe systems of work employed by ATC (Lasham) – which is particularly disappointing given it is a major company working in a particularly safety-critical sector.

“The company’s management of health and safety was extremely poor in many areas but particularly in their approach to working at height. Three falls occurred in a relatively short period and these could have resulted in even more serious injuries.

“Working at height needs careful planning and organisation, and part of that is selecting and using the right type of equipment, which is properly maintained and safe.”