105,313Records 71,083Employers 85,290Hospitalizations 27,770Amputations 2015-01-01 2025-10-31
Safety Incidents OSHA Severe Injury Reports · 2015–2025

OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14402341

TANK TRUCK,HEAD,WORK RULES,WELDING,EXPLOSION,DECAPITATED

Event
TANK TRUCK,HEAD,WORK RULES,WELDING,EXPLOSION,DECAPITATED
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
14402341
Report ID
626000

Event description

Employee killed in tanker explosion

Investigation abstract

At approximately 9:03 a.m. on May 20, 1989, Employee #1 was welding a 3 in. long by 1/4 in. wide crack on the bottom of an aluminum tanker when there was an exp losion. He was decapitated. Coworkers in the area were only slightly injured and none required hospitalization. The tanker was used to haul salt water; it had n ot been cleaned nor had any instruments been used to test the atmosphere inside the tanker prior to welding.

Victim

  1. #1 Fatality Age 41 M

    Nature of injury
    1
    Part of body
    13
    Event type
    1
    Source
    43
    Occupation code
    999
    Human factor
    1
    Environmental factor
    5
    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.