In the months leading up to the fatal April explosion at Massey Energy Co.’s Upper Big Branch mine, workers disabled a safety monitor at the order of a mine supervisor, three witnesses say.
The dangerous—and potentially illegal—incident sheds some light on the safety measures in place before the fatal explosion. Though it occurred about three miles from the site of the deadly blast, the episode raises questions about whether a disabled monitor could have contributed to the explosion that killed 29 workers, an NPR News investigation reports.
Methane monitors sit on top of 30-foot-long mining machines that cut into rock and coal. Because the process often releases methane gas and sparks that can combine into a dangerous explosion, the monitor automatically sends out an alarm and shuts down the machine whenever gas levels become too dangerous.
Without an active methane alarm, fomer federal mine safety inspector and trainer Bruce Dial said, “you’ve got 25 or 30 feet of area that could be building up methane. You could have an explosive atmosphere before you ever know about it 30 feet back.”
On February 19, miners became annoyed that the monitor was continuously shutting down the machine, one witness said, and a mine supervisor eventually ordered an electrician to rewire the monitor and circumvent the alarm system.
“The electrician said, ‘Please don’t say nothing,’ ” the miner said, adding to NPR that the electrician was afraid he would lose his state certification. “He knew it was dangerous. He knew he shouldn’t have been doing it. But when somebody higher up [is] telling you to do something, you’re going to do what they say. And he just [did] his job and [did] what they said to do.”
Massey confirmed the incident, but said that they bypassed the methane monitor in order to move the machine to a safer area for repair. Many workers said bypassing monitors was permissible for 24 hours, as long as someone on-site had a hand-held detector and took readings every 15 minutes.
But a former MSHA attorney disputed this, saying methane monitors must be working whenever machines are operational, with no exceptions.
MSHA would not comment on the specific allegations, but said that “any allegation of tampering with methane detectors is deeply troubling.” “If true, such actions would clearly violate the law and would jeopardize the lives and safety of miners.”
A joint team representing state and federal mine safety officials, Massey and Gov. Joe Manchin is probing the blast. The FBI also has launched an investigation.
Dangerous hazards like darkness, pools of standing water and falling debris have delayed the investigation, which may not finish until the end of the year, a governor spokesman told the Associated Press Wednesday.
Related Links: Four Massey Supervisors Charged in Probe of 2006 Deaths
Massey Challenges Feds Over Mine Disaster Probe
At Least 10 Dangerous Mines Excluded from Inspections in 2009
