OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14494926
WORK RULES,EQUIPMENT OPERATOR,CONSTRUCTION,EARTHMOVING EQUIP,NATURAL GAS,EXPLOSION,PIPELINE,UNSTABLE SOIL,BULLDOZER
Event description
Employee killed in explosion when dozer strikes gas pipeline
Investigation abstract
Employee #1 was assigned to cover three pipelines on the south side of the Apach e Corporation lease #MIKELS 2-9, a tank battery where the pipes had been uncover ed by heavy rains and erosion. He was operating a Flatpallis 12-7 bulldozer, mod el #14C, serial #ITER 03528. Upon completing this work, he drove the bulldozer a round the east side of the battery and then north toward an area where he could service the bulldozer. North of the battery, a 6 5/8 in. natural gas line with 9 36 PSIA ran east to west about 52 in. underground. As the bulldozer crossed over the gas line, it dropped approximately 12 ft below the surface, shearing the na tural gas line, and causing an explosion. Employee #1 was killed.
Victim
-
#1 Fatality Age 49 M
- Nature of injury
- 5
- Part of body
- 4
- Event type
- 14
- Source
- 30
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 18
- Environmental factor
- 17
- 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.