Robot kills worker at Volkswagen plant in Germany

In a bizarre accident, a 21-year-old worker at a Volkswagen plant in Germany has been killed by an assembly line robot when it grabbed and crushed him against a metal plate, the German auto giant said.
The incident happened when the worker was installing the robot at a Volkswagen assembly line on Tuesday in Baunatal, some 100 kilometres north of Frankfurt, local newspaper the Hessische Niedersaechsische Allgemeine reported, citing a company spokesman.
The incident took place in Hall 6, where electric motors are manufactured by Volkswagen.
The robot gripped him and pressed up him against a metal plate, crushing his chest, the spokesman Heiko Hillwig said.

Despite efforts to revive him, the worker, an employee of a third-party vendor, later died in hospital, the paper reported.
As a matter of procedure necessary to have the body released in cases of non-natural death, the state prosecutors' office said it is investigating to rule out any criminal culpability, CNN reported.

Prosecutors have opened an investigation into how the accident occurred.
Robot-related fatalities are rare in western production units as robots are kept behind safety cages to prevent accidental contact with humans.
In this instance the contractor was standing inside the safety cage when the accident occurred, Financial Times reported.

The second employee was outside the cage and was unharmed, it said.
A Volkswagen spokesman stressed that the robot was not one of the new generation of lightweight collaborative robots that work side-by-side with workers on the production line and forgo safety cages.
Volkswagen said the robot had not suffered a technical defect, the report said.