Remembering an Accident: The Flixborough Explosion
On June 1, 1974, 28 employees were killed and 36 injured during a massive vapor cloud explosion at the Flixborough Works of Nypro (UK) Limited. Additionally, hundreds of people offsite were injured, and over 1,800 houses and 167 businesses in the surrounding communities were damaged.
The investigation indicated that a failure of a temporary piping modification may have caused the explosion. Thirty tons of cyclohexane vapor were released when the piping failed, and when the vapor cloud found an ignition source, the energy released was equivalent to about 16 tons of TNT.
Open the .pdf of the Report of the Court of Inquiry:
https://www.catastrophic-events.com/docs/Flixborough.pdf
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