OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14535439
PHILLIPS PETROLEUM COMPANY - TIOGA GAS PLANT
TIOGA, ND·
Event description
One employee killed when pressure vessel explodes
Investigation abstract
An unfired pressure vessel with a 6,500 gallon liquid capacity, which was design ed and manufactured to be used for propane gas storage, was being used at this n atural gas processing refinery as an accumulator. The tank was subjected to forc es greater than those for which it was designed, and it developed severe stress cracks. The tank, operating at approximately 250 psi, failed and exploded. Large quantities of flammable vapors from liquid hydrocarbons were released and ignit ed, causing a second explosion. Employee #1 was killed by the explosion. A large portion of the refinery was destroyed.
Victim
-
#1 Fatality Age 34 F
- Nature of injury
- 21
- Part of body
- 4
- Event type
- 1
- Source
- 6
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 6
- Environmental factor
- 15
- 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.