- Author
-
National Transportation Safety Board
- Title
- Highway Accident Report: Liquefied Oxygen Tank Explosion Followed by Fires in Brooklyn, New York, May 30, 1970.
- Coporate
- National Transportation Safety Board, Washington, DC
- Report
-
NTSB-HAR-71-6
May 30, 1970
64 p.
- Keywords
-
highways
|
accident investigations
|
motor vehicle accidents
|
hazardous materials
|
hazard analysis
|
classifications
|
contamination
|
oxygen
|
standards
|
injuries
|
regulations
- Identifiers
- aluminum oxidation; configuration hazard
- Abstract
- On may 30, 1970, a tank truck partially filled with liquefied oxygen explosed, without warning, after making a delivery at the Victory Memorial Hospital in Brookly, New York. The force of the explosion and ensuring fires resulted in fatal injuries to the driver and a bystander, minor injuries to 30 other persone, and substantial property damages. The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of this accident was the abrupt oxidation, without warning, during conditions normally incident to transportation, of one or more reactant materials inside the cargo tank, which triggered an intense heat-producing reaction between the aluminum of the cargo tank and the oxygen cargo; the resultant rapid rise in pressure and weakening of the tank wall led to the explosive rupture of the tank and the resultant fatalities, injuries, and property damage. Contributory hazards were found to be reactive foreign matter inside the tank, configurations of certain components, a material of construction which can react vigorously with the cargo and absence of effective contamination monitoring processes.