RobotRisk › Kawasaki Robotics › 04 Jul 1981
Kenji Urada killed by Kawasaki-built robot at Akashi plant (landmark robot fatality)
S5 · 04 Jul 1981 · Kawasaki Robotics · Kawasaki Heavy Industries plant, Akashi, Japan
Record
| Company | Kawasaki Robotics |
| Industry | Machinery OEM |
| Type(s) | fatality |
| Date | 04 Jul 1981 (day precision) |
| Time of day | not documented |
| Location | Kawasaki Heavy Industries plant, Akashi, Japan |
| Severity | (fatality or catastrophic loss) |
| Scale | 1 fatality |
| Confidence | medium |
| Verified flag | Yes - independently re-checked against the cited source |
Summary
Maintenance worker Kenji Urada was killed after jumping a safety barrier to service a malfunctioning robot at a Kawasaki Heavy Industries plant in Akashi, Japan; the robot (built by Kawasaki under Unimation license) reactivated and pinned him against adjacent machinery. Widely cited as one of the first documented industrial-robot fatalities.
Primary source
Wikipedia (secondary, cross-referenced with CDC MMWR robot fatality reporting)
Publisher: Wikipedia (secondary, cross-referenced with CDC MMWR robot fatality reporting) · Retrieved: 2026-09-16
Supporting source rows (1)
| Date | Supporting source row | Publisher | Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| 04 Jul 1981 | Kenji Urada killed by Kawasaki-built robot at Akashi plant (landmark robot fatality) | Wikipedia (secondary, cross-referenced with CDC MMWR robot fatality reporting) | Wikipedia |
Machinery OEM context
fatality context
Kawasaki Robotics industry position
Related incidents
Other Kawasaki Robotics entries
- None on file.
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