An official report into a fatal explosion at an Airgas, Inc. plant in Florida, US, last year has revealed that inadequate safety measures were the root cause of the incident.
Jesse Folmar, the only employee present at the time of the incident, was killed by the nitrous oxide explosion at the Cantonment plant on 28th August 2016. The facility was heavily damaged and operations halted indefinitely.
The report, as set out by the US Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB), revealed that a pump used to transfer liquid nitrous oxide from a storage tank to trailers overheated and was the most probable cause of the accident.
The report stated, “Exceeding [these] critical safety limits appears to have started a nitrous oxide decomposition reaction.” This is cited as resulting in the trailer exploding.
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