Thread for talking about industrial explosions, accidents/craziness of the past

The Long March explosion in China is still o_O - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelsat_708

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBJ9ue6GKek

Video from the Foton-M1 explosion super scary - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foton-M1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hl9u-h_btBo

A Russian Proton-M crashed today

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWv4ZZArP-g

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23141297

The company responsible (Russian Space Systems) is enormously corrupt. Two of its general directors were arrested for fraud and money laundering a couple of weeks ago. This is likely to be a fairly big scandal - not least because Russia will probably end up compensating Kazakhstan for dumping vast amounts of toxic fuel over the cosmodrome.

Here's an oldie but goodie:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyMbaZ9FVjA&list=FLluCym6NWsFzbQo3gJaEzlg&index=666

Recent one from a different angle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zl12dXYcUTo

From the Lac Mégantic trail derailment/explosion

http://actualites.sympatico.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Lac-M%C3%A9gantic-explosion.jpeg

oh no! : (

Horrifying video of the Lac Magentic fires by a man who had just left the bar near the epicentre of the explosion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRb3JHsiqfA

Lac-Megantic, Quebec (CNN) -- Canadian authorities have found evidence that a criminal act may have led to a train crash in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, that killed at least 15 people, provincial police Capt. Michel Forget said Tuesday.

There have been many questions about the crash and explosion that wiped out a swath of the town 130 miles east of Montreal. As of Tuesday evening, 35 people were still missing, Forget said.

Authorities offered no further details about the case but said it was not caused by terrorism.

"I will not speculate on the elements that we have recovered," Forget told reporters.

I'm heading to Lac-Megantic on Monday. Oh man.

Whoa

I'm looking at the maps now. Jesus Christ, that thing happened right in the middle of town, more or less.

Correction: I am not going there next week, trip is off. Guys from Transport Canada have every single motel room in town. Man, I hope that place can recover.

some incredible photos available here: http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2013/07/freight-train-derails-and-explodes-in-lac-megantic-quebec/100548/

There was that one time the U.S. government almost killed me.

---

The Titan II Launch Complex 374-7 in Southside (Van Buren County), just north of Damascus (Van Buren and Faulkner counties), became the site of the most highly publicized disaster in the history of the Titan II missile program when its missile exploded within the launch duct on September 19, 1980. An Air Force airman was killed, and the complex was destroyed. The Titan II Missile Launch Complex 374-7 Site was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on February 18, 2000.

Complex 374-7 had already been the site of one significant accident on January 27, 1978, when an oxidizer leak sent a cloud of toxic fumes 3,000 feet long, 300 feet wide, and 100 feet high drifting across U.S. Highway 65. Civilians were evacuated from the area, and four people suffered some ill effects from contact with the vapors. The leak was quickly repaired.

On September 18, 1980, at about 6:30 p.m., an airman conducting maintenance on the Titan II missile dropped a wrench socket, which fell about eighty feet before hitting and piercing the skin on the rocket’s first-stage fuel tank, causing it to leak. The commander of the 308th Strategic Missile Wing quickly formed a potential-hazard team, and by 9:00 p.m., the Air Force personnel manning the site were evacuated. About one hour later, Air Force security police began evacuating nearby civilian residents as efforts continued to determine the status of the missile and the fuel leak.

Senior Airman David Livingston and Sergeant Jeff K. Kennedy entered the launch complex early on the morning of September 19 to get readings of airborne fuel concentrations, which they found to be at their maximum. At about 3:00 a.m., the two men returned to the surface to await further instructions. Just as they sat down on the concrete edge of the access portal, the missile exploded, blowing the 740-ton launch duct closure door 200 feet into the air and some 600 feet northeast of the launch complex. The W-53 nuclear warhead landed about 100 feet from the launch complex’s entry gate; its safety features operated correctly and prevented any loss of radioactive material. Kennedy, his leg broken, was blown 150 feet from the silo. Livingston lay amid the rubble of the launch duct for some time before security personnel located and evacuated him. Livingston died of his injuries that day. Twenty-one people were injured by the explosion or during rescue efforts.

http://www.501lifemag.com/images/stories/1010/titan.jpg

Oops.

Were you evacuated?

damn

http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/infocus/megantic070813/s_m07_30772686.jpg

xp to hl

We lived in a trailer about ten miles away from the site, as the crow flies, so we weren't part of the initial evacuation.

But when that damned thing exploded, it felt like our trailer jumped into the air. Mom at that point decided that if there were nuclear warheads flying around, we should go ahead and get moving voluntarily.

I was almost seven. I remember standing on our porch in the middle of the night, everything being completely still. It was in a very rural area, so hearing voices yelling from the highway was pretty scary.

In town, where I went to school, there was this strip mall parking lot that served as the de facto town square. And at 4 in the morning, it was packed with pick-up trucks pulled up next to each other, families in their pajamas sitting on tailgates, and everyone listening to the local AM station.

(I'd later work for that station. My future boss was on the air that night and gives a pretty good account of what it was like in this anniversary article. The AM station was a daytime-only station, meaning they had to sign off at sunset each night. When my boss turned it up to full power that night because fuckit armageddon is here, the signal reached all the way into Canada.)

We went about 60 miles to the west and spent most of the morning at a Shoney's. Even after hearing that the coast was clear and Bee Branch, Arkansas, wasn't the site of a nuclear winter, Mom still took us to meet my dad, who then took me and my sister to our grandparents in Memphis.

WOW. That's nuts. Glad to have you with us.

Why, thank you. It's nice to be here.

The whole thing is so nuts the more I've thought about it. They dismantled the Titan II program in the late 80s. I even saw one of the missiles getting trucked down a highway with about 600 police escorts (give or take 550.) Everyone knew where the silos were - there were even signs on the highways near them that simply said things like "XT9-OO374" on them. You can still spot where they were today. Anytime you see a completely paved road with a cattle gate and crossing leading to nowhere from a three-digit state highway, it ain't leading up a hill to Shangri-La.

Picturing those weapons of mass destruction buried in fields and meadows so close to my home, imagining them all shooting out all at once over the pine trees had the football ever been activated... I mean, I won't even keep a gun in my house, much less a nuclear missile in my backyard.

Here's one of the entries, not the same one talked about above:

http://i.imgur.com/sEiVXBV.png

And here's what it looks like from the air. Comparing the closed-up circle on the right to the house in the middle should give you an idea of what shot up into the air that night in 1980.

http://i.imgur.com/150YfUY.jpg

jesus

!!!

You know, I say that, but comparing the pix, I guess the circle wasn't the exact diameter of the missile either.

http://www.501lifemag.com/images/stories/1010/titan.jpg

Lac-Megantic, Quebec (CNN) -- The head of the railway whose runaway train devastated a small Quebec town cast doubt on his engineer's story Wednesday as he arrived to face insults from survivors and harsh questions from reporters.

Edward Burkhardt said the engineer has been suspended without pay and faces a criminal investigation by Canadian authorities.

He said the engineer reported to railroad managers that he set 11 hand brakes on the train cars before they broke away from their engines, but "I think it's questionable whether he did."

"Our general feeling is now that is not true," said Burkhardt,chairman of the Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway. The engineer had worked for the MM&A for "many years" and "had a completely clear safety record up until Saturday," Burkhardt said.

Most of the 73-car train derailed in the center of Lac-Megantic early Saturday, and tank cars full of oil exploded and burned. Quebec provincial authorities have found 20 bodies, and 30 more are missing "and most probably dead," Quebec Provincial Police Capt. Michel Forget said Wednesday.

Those still missing are feared dead, possibly vaporized by the resulting inferno.

I've walked down Rue Frontenac by that MusiCafe and Dollarama that are now gone. I remember taking a photo of a street sandwich board using what looked like Crazy Frog advertising "24hr tanning!"

I'm hoping everybody at the customer site I was going to visit are still okay.

Mr. Burkhardt has offered varying explanations for what happened, at one point blaming "tampering" with the train's locomotives. But on Wednesday, he told reporters that the train's engineer had apparently lied to the railroad about whether the hand brakes had been set on 11 of the train's freight cars when he parked the train at a location uphill from Lac-Mégantic on Friday night, a measure required under Canadian law and the railroad's internal rules. "It seems that adequate hand brakes were not set on the train," Mr. Burkhardt said, "and it was the engineer's responsibility to set them."

He said the engineer had been suspended without pay, and added, "I don't think he'll be back working with us."

Mr. Burkhardt, who is also the president and chief executive of Rail World, the railway's parent company, was greeted by angry hecklers when he arrived in Lac-Mégantic on Wednesday, his first visit since the accident. During the sometimes chaotic news conference, Mr. Burkhardt said that the small railroad's insurance might not be adequate to cover claims from the derailment, which destroyed 30 buildings.

this guy sounds like a real prize

The company is responsible for liabilities, regardless of how how much is covered by its insurance policy. He's basically saying Montreal Maine & Atlantic Railway, his own roll-up parent company RailWorld, and likely himself as RailWorld's founder and likely principal shareholder, are all going to take a huge financial hit from the disaster. He's not saying "screw Lac-Mégantic".

Parts installed “upside down” caused Russian rocket to explode last week

http://web-images.chacha.com/images/galleryimage644533022-feb-16-2012-600x973.jpg

Man, that's some Kerbal Space Program-level idiocy right there.

My favourite is Mariner 1 crashing shortly after launch due to a single character error in a software program.

Train fire as seen from space

http://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/81000/81581/lacmegantic_vir_2013185_187.jpg

My favourite is Mariner 1 crashing shortly after launch due to a single character error in a software program.

― Meine Damen und Herren, ein grosse sh*tstorm! (snoball), Thursday, July 11, 2013 3:28 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Copyediting: SRS BZNESS.

(Thanks for the name; I remembered the story loosely and have been known to cite it when explaining the importance of proper spelling, punctuation, and grammar.)

http://youtu.be/OMhkeAfFLkk
1937: A film vault in Little Ferry, NJ goes up in flames, taking with it major portions of 20th Century Fox's silent-era and pre-Code film catalog.

Ok, turns out our customer lost employees in that blast, and our main contact there lost two relatives himself. Jesus Christ. This place was a company town.

the more i read about the lac megantic disaster, the sicker and angrier I feel. Obviously the whole story is not out yet. I can't imagine what it must be like going in there right now, kingfish.

from here: http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/07/09/lacmgantic_fire_chief_contradicts_rail_companys_account.html

<i> Rail World is a railway management, consulting and investment corporation that specializes in privatizations and restructurings, according to its website. Burkhardt, MMA chair, incorporated Rail World in 1999 and serves as president and CEO.

“Its purpose is to promote rail industry privatization by bringing together government bodies wishing to sell their stakes with investment capital and management skills,” </i>

Apparently they have done substantial lobbying to be free of 'excessive' regulation and standards, of course, of course.

Yeah, my visit was cancelled/indefinitely postponed.

Also, one thing my various techie and blue/white-collar-blended jobs have taught me is that safety regs are written in blood, tho its a fact I myself forget sometimes.

That is a really poignant and pointed way to put it, indeed.

so true, kingfish otm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterfall_train_disaster

Not much to note about that except that I was somewhat disappointed to read that it wasn't about a train somehow going over a waterfall.

I'm not even clicking on that link now that I know that's not what it is ;_;

Not quite the same as other things in the thread, but: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/15/us/ups-cargo-plane-crashes-in-alabama.html?_r=0

A United Parcel Service cargo plane crashed during its landing approach at the Birmingham, Ala., airport on Wednesday morning, the authorities said.

The accident occurred about 6 a.m., as U.P.S. Flight 1354, which was en route from Louisville, Ky., made its descent toward Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport, about five miles northeast of downtown Birmingham, said Kathleen Bergen, a spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration. It was not immediately clear if there were fatalities.

The plane, an Airbus A300, a wide-body aircraft that is commonly used by air cargo companies for medium-range flights, went down about half a mile from a runway at the airport, officials said. The authorities have not yet said how many crew members were onboard, but such flights usually have a pilot and a co-pilot, according to the Airbus Web site.

The Environmental Disaster You’ve Never Heard Of - Albuquerque’s Kirtland Air Force Base jet fuel spill

The fighter jets and military planes that blast into the skies each day above Albuquerque’s Kirtland Air Force Base (KAFB) consume millions of gallons of jet fuel each year. In order to serve this fleet, the Air Force stores enormous amounts of fuel and distributes it throughout the base via a network of tanks, pipes and pumps. In the early 1950s, the base replaced leaking tanks and aging pipelines with a new fuels facility it promised would modernize and make more safe the handling and distribution of jet fuel. The facility received its first trainload of jet fuel and aviation gas in 1953. Almost immediately, and for the next 45 years, it has leaked jet fuel into the surrounding soil.

The “leak” continued, undetected, until 1992 when workers observed a huge surface plume in the soil surrounding the fuel facility. The Air Force largely ignored requests by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to investigate the plume’s source and extent and instead, in 1994, gave itself a waiver from conducting military-mandated tests of the facility pipeline. Under pressure from the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED), the Air Force finally conducted pressure tests of the pipelines in 1999. They failed spectacularly. The added pressure blew massive holes in the pipeline. The test appeared to prove the pipes were leaking. In a comic/tragic, nothing-to-see-here moment in May 2000, Mark Holmes, a civilian project manager for Kirtland’s environmental unit, told the Albuquerque Journal that everything was fine: The 100,000 gallons of missing fuel could be explained by a simple accounting error. NMED staffer Dennis McQuillan, however, told the Journal that if it were a 100,000 gallon spill, it “would be a big spill, one of the biggest” in state history.

They were both wrong. In 2006 an Air Force contractor drilled an exploratory well in southeast Albuquerque’s Bullhead Park, just outside the base's northern boundary. He found four feet of jet fuel floating on top of the aquifer. Additional monitoring wells found a plume of jet fuel slithering northeast from the original spill location and well beyond the northern boundary of the base. Kirtland estimated the plume at between one and two million gallons, but NMED raised that estimate to eight million gallons. Two years later, with more monitoring and evidence of the true scale of the spill, NMED revised the estimate dramatically to 24 million gallons, an amount 240 times larger than the 2000 estimate.

For comparison's sake, the KAFB spill is larger than the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill, which dumped more than 12 million gallons of crude oil into Alaska’s Prince William Sound, killing an estimated quarter-million seabirds, 3,000 otters, hundreds of harbor seals and bald eagles and nearly two dozen killer whales. The KAFB jet fuel spill—the Air Force calls it a “leak”—is the largest toxic contamination of an aquifer in US history, and it could be twice the size of the Exxon Valdez disaster.

And that’s bad enough, but it’s the good news compared to what follows.

95th anniversary of the Boston Molasses Disaster in which 21 people were killed and a further 150 injured by an eight metre wave of treacle:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Molasses_Disaster

New video of that fertilizer plant explosion last year

http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/17/us/texas-explosion-anniversary-video/index.html?c=homepage-t&page=1

William Langewiesche's account of the Estonia ferry disaster in 1994: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2004/05/a-sea-story/302940/

Gut wrenching reading.

Video of spectacular shockwave from explosion at military unit in Krasnoyarsk Krai of Russia pic.twitter.com/0yeg3hIb5F

— Liveuamap (@Liveuamap) August 5, 2019

Yipes

Although technically off topic for this thread since that appears to be ongoing

fair

I'll take it.

https://www-m.cnn.com/2019/11/27/us/port-neches-plant-explosion/index.html

Also that fertilizer truck blast...damn. I guess if a truck can be heard 100 miles away it makes it much more believable that Krakatoa could be heard blowing its top 3000 miles away across the expanse of the Indian ocean.

"The black stuff floating, don't touch it," said Troy Monk, who is the director of health safety and security for the TPC Group.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RFDKpwdbEA

Knew I recognized the narrator from somewhere.

Definitely an older one: pier collapse at 1883 church picnic in Baltimore kills 63.

https://anengineersaspect.blogspot.com/2010/05/the-tivoli-maryland-pier-collapse-july.html

Aerial footage of Exeter bomb exploding

Welp, I'd hate to be going to work in Dresden next week.

gerry having the last laugh there

Extruded aluminum factory goes from zero to full incineration in just over 30 seconds (video on Reddit)
https://www.reddit.com/r/CatastrophicFailure/comments/v48rnt/extrudedaluminium_factory_jun_22/

Basically, if there's an industrial fire in an enclosed space - GTFO immediately.

New USCSB video on the 2019 Philadelphia refinery explosion. Super-informative and recommended if you bookmark this thread.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gc8qXTh6tTY

That is the sweetest YouTube channel

TIL what a dead leg is and why popcorn polymer is incredibly dangerous

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-3BFXpBcjc

O_O

holy shit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhRlm0yQ2ZU