OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14387971
WORK RULES,CLOGGED,EXPLOSION,FLASHBACK,SPARK,COMBUSTIBLE DUST,HOPPER
Event description
Two employees killed in magnesium dust explosion
Investigation abstract
At approximately 7:15 p.m. on January 17, 1990, Employees #1 and #2 were working on the third floor of the Reagent Building and mixing the following three compo unds: magnesium powder (metallic), calcium carbide, and sodium chloride. Employe e #3 was bringing in drums of magnesium powder. Employees #1 and #2 were using a length of steel pipe to loosen a blockage in a magnesium batching hopper. The p ipe caused a spark to ignite a magnesium powder flash fire and explosion. Employ ees #1 and 2 were killed and Employee #3 was injured.
Victims (3)
-
#1 Fatality Age 21 M
- Nature of injury
- 5
- Part of body
- 4
- Event type
- 8
- Source
- 14
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 11
- Environmental factor
- 10
- Task assigned
- 1
-
#2 Fatality Age 20 M
- Nature of injury
- 5
- Part of body
- 4
- Event type
- 8
- Source
- 14
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 11
- Environmental factor
- 10
- Task assigned
- 1
-
#3 Hospitalized Age 26 M
- Nature of injury
- 5
- Part of body
- 4
- Event type
- 8
- Source
- 14
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 11
- Environmental factor
- 10
- 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.