104,543Records 70,659Employers 84,666Hospitalizations 27,563Amputations 2015-01-01 2025-09-30
Safety Incidents OSHA Severe Injury Reports · 2015–2025

OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #733527

FLAMMABLE VAPORS,EQUIPMENT FAILURE,BURN,MAINTENANCE,FLAMMABLE LIQUID,FIRE,BROKEN WELD,CONSTRUCTION,PIPELINE,JET FUEL

Event
FLAMMABLE VAPORS,EQUIPMENT FAILURE,BURN,MAINTENANCE,FLAMMABLE LIQUID,FIRE,BROKEN WELD,CONSTRUCTION,PIPELINE,JET FUEL
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
733527
Report ID
855610

Event description

Employee killed in fire following pipeline break

Investigation abstract

A portion of pipeline from Billings, MT, to Rawling, WY, carrying JP-4 jet fuel at 400 psi, was being resurfaced with a hot coating. The pipe was exposed in a 5 1/2 feet wide by 3 1/2 feet deep trench. Employee #1 was operating a Caterpilla r side boom tractor approximately 12 feet from the near edge of the trench. When the pipe was picked up, a welded joint failed, and the jet fuel ignited when th e fumes reached the open burner in the pipe coating machine. Employee #1 died as a result of burns. Other equipment in use at the site included a Remco LM 612 p ipe scraping machine and a pipe wrapping machine that was burnt beyond recogniti on.

Victims (2)

  1. #1 Fatality Age 60 M

    Nature of injury
    5
    Part of body
    4
    Event type
    14
    Source
    16
    Occupation code
    558
    Human factor
    1
    Environmental factor
    10
    Task assigned
    1
  2. #981 Degree 0 Age 0

    Nature of injury
    0
    Part of body
    0
    Event type
    0
    Source
    0
    Occupation code
    0
    Human factor
    0
    Environmental factor
    0
    Task assigned
    0

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.