Blade crashes into Apollo’s gangway offshore Belgium

A blade from one of SeaMade’s wind turbines collided with the gangway on DEME Group’s jack-up Apollo, after which the gangway detached from the vessel and fell into the sea.

The accident happened on 2 July in the morning and no injuries were reported as there were no employees on the gangway at the time of the incident, a spokesperson from Otary told our sister news site OffshoreWIND.biz.

The turbine installation work was immediately paused and Apollo returned to Ostend for some minor repairs and the re-installation of another gangway.

On 7 July, after MWS re-approval, Apollo resumed its activities in the SeaMade concession zone.

The cause of the incident is currently being investigated.

SeaMade is a combination of the 235 MW Mermaid and the 252 MW Seastar offshore wind projects.

The 487 MW wind farm, which will comprise 58 Siemens Gamesa 8.4 MW turbines, recently began producing power to the Belgian grid.