The 54 year old father died on Friday night after a refrigerated container he was unloading fell off a deck on the Ensco-56 oil rig, bounced off the safety rail of a lower deck and plunged 30m into the ocean. The container floated about 800m from the rig before it was recovered.
Another man narrowly escaped with his life after just walking out of the container when it toppled backwards off the deck.
The fatality was the first for WA's oil and gas industry in eight years.
Investigators from the state Department of Industry and Petroleum Resources were dispatched to the scene of the accident to probe the cause of the fatality, according to Jim Bass, CEO of operator Apache Energy.
"Were deeply concerned about this incident as we are about any accident of any magnitude," Mr Bass said.
