 Excerpt
From the NTSB's Executive Summary:
About 5:14 a.m., eastern daylight time,
on June 29, 1998, at Stock Island, Key West, Florida, a Dion Oil
Company (Dion) driver was on top of a straight-truck cargo tank
checking the contents of its compartments and preparing to transfer
cargo from a semitrailer cargo tank when explosive vapors ignited
within the straight-truck cargo tank. The ignition caused an explosion
that threw the driver from the top of the truck. The fire and a
series of at least three explosions injured the driver and destroyed
the straight truck, a tractor, the front of the semitrailer, and
a second nearby straight-truck cargo tank. Damage was estimated
at more than $185,000. As a result of its investigation of the accident,
the National Transportation Safety Board identified three major
safety issues:
The adequacy of Dion’s product-transfer procedures and training.
The adequacy of the Federal Highway Administration’s oversight of
motor carriers’ procedures and training for loading and unloading
hazardous materials.
The adequacy of Florida’s oversight of the fire safety of storage
tanks.The Safety Board determines that the probable cause of the
accident was Dion’s lack of adequate procedures and driver training,
resulting in the driver’s pouring a mixture of gasoline and diesel
fuel from a plastic bucket into a cargo-tank compartment that contained
a mixture of explosive vapors.
As a result of its investigation of this accident, the Safety Board
makes
recommendations to the Federal Highway Administration, Dion, the
Florida State Fire
Marshal, the Florida Department of Transportation, the Florida Department
of
Agriculture, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection,
the National Fire
Prevention Association, the National Association of State Fire Marshals,
and the
International Association of Fire Chiefs
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