OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #692442
BURN,FLAMMABLE LIQUID,FLAMMABLE VAPORS,WORK RULES,FIRE,OIL TANK,EXPLOSION,SMOKING,TRACTOR TRAILER
Event description
Employee killed in oil tanker fire
Investigation abstract
At 10:20 p.m. on February 2, 1989, Employee #1 and two companions arrived at the ourth hatch cover near the front of the tanker. An explosion occurred and a flas h fire with a large fireball at the top of the tanker engulfed Employee #1 in fl ames. Employee #1 suffered third-degree burns over his entire body, and died the next day. A butane lighter and an open pack of cigarettes were found adjacent t o the tanker next to his body. Smoking or attempting to light a cigarette around flammable liquids was the most probable cause of the accident. C & M Establishment. Employee #1 immediately started safety checks on the tract or trailer oil tanker that he was going to drive. His companions stood adjacent to the tanker while he performed the checks. After Employee #1 finished the chec ks on the ground, he climbed the attached ladder to the top of the tanker. He st arted at the rear and stopped at all four hatch covers. Because the witness was not in a position to see what Employee #1 was doing, it cannot be determined if he was opening hatch covers to check load levels or just checking to see if the hatch covers were properly secured. At approximately 10:44 p.m., he got to the f
Victim
-
#1 Fatality Age 42 M
- Nature of injury
- 5
- Part of body
- 19
- Event type
- 14
- Source
- 16
- Occupation code
- 804
- Human factor
- 1
- Environmental factor
- 10
- 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.