> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.whsbrief.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Checked Only From Above: The Plywood Sheet Two Inspections Missed at Chatswood - URL: https://www.whsbrief.com/checked-only-from-above-the-plywood-sheet-two-inspections-missed-at-chatswood/ - Published: 2026-11-08T22:30:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-11-08T22:29:59.000Z - Description: A 16-year-old trainee fell 3.4 metres through an unmarked plywood cover that a deck walk and a signed handover certificate both missed, because nobody looked from below. - Author: WHS Brief - Tags: blog On 19 May 2022 a 16-year-old trainee was working on a formwork deck at the Chatswood Education Precinct project when he stepped onto a sheet of plywood and fell about 3.4 metres through the opening beneath it. Two days earlier a box panel had been taken out to fit a ladder. It was refitted out of level. A worker nailed an unmarked plywood sheet over the gap and never came back to remove it. The foreman walked the deck. A handover certificate was signed. Neither picked it up. On 2 November the NSW District Court fined the contractor, now called Axentra Projects, $75,000 and made an adverse publicity order. I keep coming back to one line in the judgment summary: the inspections were only done from above. ### An Inspection Can Only See What It Looks At From the top of a formwork deck, a sheet of ply nailed over a hole looks like more deck. That is the whole problem. The foreman's walk and the handover certificate were real controls. They were done and they were signed. They simply checked the surface people would stand on rather than the structure holding it up. Most of us have inspection steps like this somewhere in our systems. They feel thorough because they happen every shift and leave a signature behind. The question is whether the method could ever find the failure we are worried about. Ask yourself about your own pre-use and handover checks: - For each item on the checklist, from what position is it physically checked? - Could the hazard you care most about be hidden from that position? - Does anyone ever look from below, from behind or from inside? - Is the person signing the certificate the person who did the looking? ### The Temporary Fix That Became Permanent The plywood sheet was a stopgap. Somebody covered an opening so nobody would fall through it, which is a sensible instinct. What made it deadly was that it was unmarked and unfixed to any process. Nobody owned its removal. Nobody recorded that it existed. Temporary covers, temporary barriers and temporary bypasses are where good intentions turn into hidden hazards. The judgment's practical lesson is blunt. Handover checklists should require inspection from below and ban unmarked covers over penetrations. - Do you have a rule that every cover over a penetration is fixed, rated and clearly marked? - When someone installs a temporary fix, where is it logged and who must close it out? - Would a new worker on the deck know the difference between a cover and the floor? ### Verification Failures Show Up in Other Trades Too The same week WorkSafe Victoria charged Lee Brothers Fencing over a steel gate that collapsed on a member of the public at a Tullamarine hotel in November 2024\. The allegations, which are only allegations at this stage, are that there was no documented welding procedure and that the welds were never inspected and tested by a qualified welding inspector before the gate was installed. A formwork deck and a welded gate have little in common on the surface. Underneath they share the same question. Did anyone verify the thing that actually carries the load or only the thing that is easy to see? Weld records and deck handovers can both slide into paperwork. When they do, the signature stays and the safety goes. ### One Thing to Do This Week Pick your highest-consequence inspection, the one that lets people onto a structure or lets plant back into service. Go and watch it being done. Note where the inspector stands and what they can and cannot see from there. If the answer is "only the top surface", change the method before you change the form. If a hazard sat directly under your last inspection, would your process have found it?