A highwall measuring approx 150' long, 180' high, & 75' wide collapsed resulting in fatal injuries to 2 miners that were working beneath the highwall. One was operating an excavator & the other was operating a bulldozer. Examination of the remaining highwall indicates the highwall failure originated at the toe of the columnar section above the Pittsburgh Big Vein coal seam.
George R BeenerController
- Fatalities
- 2
- Total incidents
- 21
- Mines on record
- 1
- Years on record
- 2003–2025
Safety benchmark
Recorded fatalities relative to other controllers with a fatal MSHA history. Percentile is computed across the 590 controllers with at least one recorded fatality.
More recorded fatalities than 73% of controllers on file.
Position when controllers are sorted by recorded fatalities.
Industry mean: 2.0 fatalities per fatal-history controller.
- Patsy H Fell-Barker2fatal22 total
- George R Beenerthis controller2fatal21 total
- Steve L Lawson1fatal21 total
- Pro Frac Holding Corp1fatal21 total
- Nyrstar Netherlands Holdings B.V.1fatal21 total
Methodology: percentile and rank computed across MSHA controllers with at least one recorded fatality. Industry mean is the average across that same population. Peers are sampled by closest total-incident count, regardless of fatality outcome.
Top causes
- FALL OF FACE/RIB/PILLAR/SIDE/HIGHWALL2 fatalities
- SLIP OR FALL OF PERSON10 non-fatal
- POWERED HAULAGE4 non-fatal
- HANDLING OF MATERIALS4 non-fatal
- MACHINERY1 non-fatal
Incident timeline
Operators under this controller
Mines on record
- Job #3MD
Fatalities under this controller
2 recordedA highwall measuring approx 150' long, 180' high, & 75' wide collapsed resulting in fatal injuries to 2 miners that were working beneath the highwall. One was operating an excavator & the other was operating a bulldozer. Examination of the remaining highwall indicates the highwall failure originated at the toe of the columnar section above the Pittsburgh Big Vein coal seam.