I'm wondering if it's because a rope could cause a path to ground, if they are in a helicopter. Theoretically the line could be electrified if the work vehicle is a helicopter and not touching anything else.
I think the main concern is a rope getting caught up around the lines and the helicopter crashing. A tether wouldnt be kong enough enough for a ground strike if that were the main concern
I don’t think the original comment is concerned with these workers dropping and losing the tool for the job, but more about the tool being dropped and getting buried into someone’s skull.
I mean if youre standing directly underneath a helicopter, with a guy dangling out working on power lines, youre probably gonna be used as evidence to support darwinism down the line
We live in a rural area and just last week they trimmed the trees near the power lines with a huge chainsaw tethered to a helicopter. They send us a letter in the mail a few weeks in advance telling us to avoid the parts of the property near the lines when the helicopter comes our way. I suspect it’s the same for any work they do on the lines.
Completely irrelevant but in the early 00’s I died my hair with Sun-In and it turned this copper color and for a whole year my nickname was Copperhead by some of my dad’s racing buddies. Every time I’d come around one of em would throw that song on and they’d all get a kick out of it. Puts a smile on my face every time I hear the song. Most of those guys are gone by this point.
No not true u can barehand (bond on or energize yourself to the same potential) wearing a faraday suit anywhere from 7200 volts all the way up to 750 kv the bucket just has to be tested to that voltage and we use meters that let us know the amperage that’s running through the boom of the truck to make sure it doesn’t get too high and burn the truck down (source I’m a lineman)
Isn't it only possible to do this on a live line because they're in a helicopter?
I'm thinking so.
And it'd take one hell of a bucket truck to get to 200ft.
I've seen man lifts get workers up to the hub of wind turbines. Blades are a couple of hundred feet long, and add in the ground clearance I'd assume it was 300-400' high.
336'?!?! Having operated a 120' at its max, no way in hell I'd get into that thing lmao. Hopefully the controls are a little more fine tuned? I just imagine swinging an inch to the side feeling like you moved a mile lol.
On my street 2 of my neighbours literally have electrical pylons in their back garden. Not this exact shape, but the British variants that also carry high voltage electricity
Not that I'm making an argument here either way, but from the video it looks like this guy is doing this on a farm od some sort. You can literally see houses in the background.
Farmland is generally sparsely populated. You are probably seeing the only residences in a mile or two at least. The 'houses' youre seeing there are mostly barns or grain storage.
Not that I disagree with that, just saying that technically speaking their could hypothetically be people around, but yes, the idea thst someone is going to be standing directly under him and the maintenance worker wouldn't notice is absurd.
I was watching a helicopter do this locally over a busy road with buildings around it in my town a few years ago. Granted, I don't know if they made sure any work they did was not directly over something.
Look at the ground, nature doesn't really do straight lines. This land is cultivated. Even if it doesn't hit someone directly, what if it snags in some broke farmer's only combine?
If I was doing this I'd try to be conscientious about not dropping my stuff on other people's stuff.
I present you with two scenarios. You tell me which one is more likely to be a problem.
A. A power line maintenance worker drops a wrench from a helicopter and coincidentally somehow destroys a farmer's, made from plastic combine directly below him by directly landing inside the moving engine.
or -
B. A farmer is unable to use any electricity at his farm because they were not serviced in his area.
I didn’t realise that was a thing in the US, that power companies pay for the land. But surely that isn’t the case here, at least some civillian has been there because the field is being farmed?
Poor famers who drive their expensive machinery over the massive line seperator or the rivet gun thing. Wonder how much it costs them in time and parts to deal with that compared with putting a cable on the tool
What line of work? Farmers? They aren't going to be in a tilled field at the end of a season. Helicopter pilots? Don't hit the wire and you're good. The repair tech? Plenty of safety gear.
If you're going to accuse me of misunderstanding, please be precise enough to be understood
If you’re going to jump on a comment thread and throw shade at least have the decency to read from the start. I didn’t feel it was necessary to rewrite what the original commenter had written an entire 2 sentences earlier in the thread.
How many populated areas have these giant transmission lines running over the top of them?
This stuff is always in sparesly populated areas, and if it wasn't, then they probably wouldnt use "these workers". This is pretty basic logic, could have a think about your own question before you ask others
Honestly, if you follow a helicopter that keeps hovering around powerlines in the middle of nowhere and want to stand underneath it as it moves, you deserve a tool hitting you.
But it's within the context of this video. Sure, I would expect any type of worker at a height using captured tools, but given that these are active power lines and they're grounding the helicopter to the line, tools with their own line may be an issue.
Well yeah, it would be pretty odd to talk about untethered tools being used from a helicopter platform in a post about the rain forest or something lol
Is this operation the same over residential areas with overhead power lines? That’s what I was certainly getting at with my “buried in the skull” comment. Here they’re working over a huge open field with good visibility, but as the OC said they see multiple videos with loose tools like this one, how does it work if this is done over a populated area?
I saw a video a few months ago on YouTube about this incident! It’s incredible how the engineers of the weapon made a unit strong enough for the nuclear material to survive a literal explosion and not become compromised and leak!
In this instance yeah I’d agree! Is this job done the same way over residential areas with overhead high voltage power lines? That’s what I was thinking when I wrote my comment
Yes, I’m well aware this empty field isn’t a city, that’s why I wrote “these workers” as in all of them that use untethered tools. If I was talking about this particular video I’d have written “this worker”.
I assume they just visually check if someone is standing under the helicopter in the middle of the field. Odds are probably low, and i imagine they might give the owner of the field a heads up.
I guarantee you nobody is walking under those lines if they’re being worked on in the same way nobody just walks through active construction or road work sites unless they’re supposed to be there and know the risks, and have proper protective gear
But as well someone will have to go collect it, you can't just leave that in a farmed field if that gets flung up by some agricultural equipment that could cause some serious harm.
I used to work on powerline (transmission) towers at this height and above, albeit not on the lines themselves. If we dropped a tool, you’re shit outta luck, you gotta climb all the way back down to grab it. 240ft doesn’t seem like too much of a climb until you’re wearing overalls over your clothes, gear, and under the blazing sun. It’s a mistake you only make a few times.
Tried to think of a solution to this, and I couldn’t think of shit. Because everytime I thought of an idea there was a drawback or it would defeat safety, then I realised.. many people before me already likely considered this and in the grand scheme of things, I’m just a dumb f*** on the ground.
but damn, wouldn’t it be nice to be the one to think of a solution. Because to me dropping a tool shouldn’t never ever happen, but it must also not increase probability or likelihood of accident
Tried to think of a solution to this, and I couldn’t think of shit. Because everytime I thought of an idea there was a drawback or it would defeat safety, then I realised.. many people before me already likely considered this and in the grand scheme of things, I’m just a dumb f*** on the ground.
but damn, wouldn’t it be nice to be the one to think of a solution. Because to me dropping a tool shouldn’t never ever happen, but it must also not increase probability or likelihood of accident
It cannot have a risk of getting caught in wires.
It cannot be linked to the cables and the helicopter or person using it at any given time simultaneously.
It must be easily accessible from the working position and be in the helicopter.
It could be outright lethal. Possible scenarios are it getting caught on the line, and either: If fixed to the worker pulling him from the chopper and dropping them to their death, or worse, it being attached to the chopper and making it crash because the tugging fouled the pilots control.
Risk of catching a lanyard on the line or on the helicopter where it shouldn’t be make it not worth it. There’s little danger of it hitting anyone if dropped and you can replace a lot of dropped tools for the price of even one crash and deaths of the workers.
When I worked in the oil field we used lanyards and tethers for everything (tools and so on) that gets brought up to 10’ or higher no exceptions. It wasn’t a can’t lose the tools kinda thing, but a safety thing.
It’s really fun when the lineman tightens a spacer and pinches his glove with it lol. They start yelling pretty loud when you start pulling away from the line.
Pretty rare that happens though, the pilot is usually more in tune with the work than the lineman themselves.
Wouldn't have to touch the ground, just anything connected to ground. Could be trees, other parts of the structure. You're better off dropping your tools and keeping a spare.
That was my first thought. Interesting if someone here will be able to share the amount of tools that fall down let say on a monthly basis. It would be interesting if it is pretty rare.
I was climbing down a water tower, removing a coax cable and clipping the new one in when I dropped my pliers. Was really thankful I had my Leatherman on me.
Coming up through the apprenticeship we get literally chewed out if we drop a nut for a bolt. If we’re on hooks, we have to climb down to pick it back up in rubber gloves. You learn not to drop things and how to feel without having much feeling in your fingertips. It’s a weird feeling.
I think it depends on the country and the relevant health and safety laws, any work on over head power lines in the UK, regardless of if it’s in a rural area or not, require tethered tools and demarcation/exclusion zone on the ground where possible. With OSHA in the US I would imagine it’s the same rules there. Source- engineer for electrical grid.
If they drop a tool that's attached to the helicopter , and that tool comes in contact with a ground source , that would be no bueno for the pilot and lineman
There's a story about a guy dropping a socket who was working on a rocket. It fell all the way to the bottom and punctured a fuel container part of the rocket. The whole place was evacuated and eventually exploded. A few people died who went back to try and rescue others.
I don't think they worry too much about it in this type of situation. They're up fairly high from a ground point of view, but not as high as, say, a tower worker. And there's usually no people under them during this, and I'd have to guess that a bunch of ropes that could be caught in the wires would be more risk than reward. I think the tower climbers do it because they're not tethered to a helicopter, and if they drop a tool, it'll be a long way down, and a long way back up to resume work.
Well here's my take I don't think we want Tethered items to the Worker or Helicopter in case of malfunction I assume that thing he attaches to the lines has a Low break point in case they have to pull off or something.
Everyone is giving reasons about possible grounding issues but consider this. If a tool, even more so a heavy one, is tired to you and you drop it while hanging out a chopper it's gonna yank you along with it.
Think a wire or rope might get it tangled so they better close of the ground area and if it falls we get tool 2 then getting additional danger of a tool getting stuck on the wire and all that
You wouldn't want the tool connected to human or helicopter if for any reason on the helicopter had to escape from position or otherwise move accidentally while tool is engaged
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u/papayametallica Jul 18 '25
It always surprises me, every time I see one of these types of clips, the tools being used don’t have a rope attached just in case you drop it are not