This week we continue the series of questions about performing energized work during your career.
OSHA and NFPA 70E strongly advocate performing work only on electrical systems placed into an electrically safe work condition, however....

Have you ever replaced a circuit breaker in an energized panel?

Yes - up to 300 volts WITH proper PPE
Yes - up to 300 volts WITHOUT proper PPE
Yes - 301 to 600 volts WITH proper PPE
Yes - 301 to 600 volts WITHOUT proper PPE
No

(Select all that apply)

Replacing circuit breakers in an energized bucket/panel is not an uncommon practice. And sadly, sometimes it gives very close call like in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bBvmPRqfmo
But the general understanding of arc flash is improving, thanks to IEEE 1584, NFPA 70E, OSHA enforcement, and our arc flash gurus here. There are demanding situations where the bus is live and breakers have to be racked in/out. But we fully understand from IEEE 1584 Article 5.3 or NFPA 70E 2015 Article D.4.3, that the incident energy is inversely proportional to working distance (with exponent factor depending on voltage & type of equipment). Therefore, it will be a good practice if we use remote racking tools (devices) in addition to the recommended PPE. After all nothing is larger than life.

The question is a bit strange. It is common to pull out a drawout breaker because the equipment is designed for it. The incidents of arcing faults due to issues during racking operations are high compared to bolt in breakers but less than serious injuries from other comparable sources. So although it is a greater risk compared to arcing faults while operating the same breaker, it is less than says serious injuries from moving equipment. Similarly some companies require rubber gloves categorically but their use is not valuable with effectively grounded metal enclosures and resistance or solidly grounded system grounds.

Remote racking devices as a category are definitely not a solution. The aftermarket stuff has either fallen off or jammed breakers on me, leavong the breaker in an unknown conditipn halfway in or out, and mot always possible to safely reset and try again without de-energizing the switchgear. The risk significantly exceeds the reward. So I can't understand why this crap continues to be offered as a solution by anybody bjt salesmen. Its not a solution. Its an invitation to create more hazards. Its the same issue as the bad old days of unreliable commercial explosives...if the cap fails to set off the charge, then what? There are many stories prior to the almost universal adaptation of stable mixtures and non-el of attempts to deal with charges that never went off and trying to deal with them. Drawout gear that is jammed or partly engaged in the cell is the same issue...thd defective remote racking device may have left it with a bent stab. But since the operator was cowering behind a wall 30 feet away, there is no way to know.

With regards to changing bolted or stabbed breakers in lighting panels (under 300 V) the incident energy rarely gets above 1.2 cal, never mind the 4 cal rating used by IEEE C2 (NESC). So 'proper PPE' here I guess means rubber gloves or insulated tools. The biggest risk of something going wrong is maneuvering the wire around. In OSHA's investigation database the only case that applies is disassembly of an energized construction temporary panel fed from the utility while energized in tank tops and flip flops. I found no cases of swapping breakers in lighting panels where an arc flash resulted in hospitalization. Shock is a different matter.

In the OSHA database, there were several arc flash incidents while drilling & tapping a bus to accept a breaker from a different manufacturer where the drill bit hit the enclosure and initiated an arc flash but I would hardly consider this activity 'changing a breaker'. Its pure modificatipn to live equipment, never mind words like risky, cowboy, and stupid.

Circumstances also affect this. For instance flimsy outer covers or improperly repaired covers can and have initiated arcing faults. Dropped tools or accumulations of conductive dusts have also caused arcing faults. So one cannot categorically say that breaker changeouts on a particular class of equipmemt are categorically safe, whether or not properly installed and maintained. But a little extra verbiage around door opening/closing as a separate subtask captures these issues.

So in many circumstances, PPE would not be required for breaker changes as the question implies.