OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14232151
BURN,VAPOR,CONFINED SPACE,VENTING,FIRE,TANK CLEANING,EXPLOSION,TANK
Event description
FLASH FIRE INSIDE TANK DURING CLEANING KILLS ONE
Investigation abstract
Employee #1 and Employee #2 were cleaning the inside of an 80,000 gallon J P-4 j et fuel storage tank using a vacuum system. Both employees were in the tank when it exploded. Employee #1, working near the center of the tank, was engulfed in flames and made his way to the opening with his garments burnt off and crawled o ut. Employees extinguished the fire on Employee #1 who received third degree bur ns on 80 percent of his body and died. Employee #2 was working near the opening and was blown out of the tank and was not injured.
Victim
-
#1 Fatality Age 29 M
- Nature of injury
- 5
- Part of body
- 19
- Event type
- 14
- Source
- 16
- Occupation code
- 889
- Human factor
- 1
- Environmental factor
- 18
- Hazardous substance
- 2037
- Task assigned
- 1
Codes shown verbatim from OSHA's accident-investigation database. A human-readable decoder is coming in a future release once the accident_lookup2 dictionary is loaded.