Unit 2 is in the planned outage, refuelling is in progress. After loading a fresh assembly into the core, refuelling machine (RM) operator pulded out RM beam from the reactor and started to relocate RM to spent fuel pool area in order to take the next fresh fuel assembly. While RM was moving, personnel heard unusual noise and stopped RM. A damaged fresh fuel assembly was found on RM beam in spite of the fact that according to all instrumentation readings, the assembly had been left in the core. The damaged fuel assembly was removed out of RM, no personnel overexposure and radioactive releases occurred. Justification: The event is provisionally rated level "2" under the degradation of defence in depth criterion (see User's guide, p. 46 example 6 "fuel assembly drop during refuelling". The final rating will be made after the event investigation completion.
Location: SOUTH UKRAINE-2 Event date: Fri, 22-08-1997
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