Unintended Consequences

Fire in Indiana

Authors

  • Terry Hardy Great Circle Analytics

Keywords:

fire, Indiana, lessons learned, steel

Abstract

On February 2, 2001, two employees of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation’s Burns Harbor Mill in Chesterton, Indiana died in a fire at the plant. The accident occurred during work to remove a furnace — and associated piping — that had been decommissioned in 1992. This batch furnace had been isolated from coke ovens through the use of a 10-inch valve. One month prior to the accident, a leak had been discovered in this valve, likely the result of water from the accumulation of coke oven gas condensate that had frozen and cracked the valve.

Author Biography

Terry Hardy, Great Circle Analytics

Terry Hardy leads efforts in system safety and software assurance at Great Circle Analytics. Mr. Hardy has over 25 years of experience and numerous publications in the areas of launch vehicles, space propulsion, cryogenics, software, safety analysis, and risk management. Prior to founding Great Circle Analytics, he led software safety and assurance efforts at Special Aerospace Services and at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center; responsibilities included membership on the Constellation Safety Engineering Review Panel. Mr. Hardy also was the Principal Engineer for Reliability in FAA's Office of Commercial Space Transportation, leading efforts to develop safety, reliability, and risk management regulations, guidance documents, and training. Mr. Hardy holds a BS degree in chemical engineering, an MS degree in chemical engineering, and an MS degree in civil engineering. He also has been certified as a Reliability Engineer, Quality Engineer, and Software Quality Engineer through the American Society for Quality.

References

U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board. “Investigation Report: Steel Manufacturing Incident (2 Killed, 4 Injured), Bethlehem Steel Corporation, Burns Harbor Division, Chesterton, Indiana, February 2, 2001,” Report No. 2001-02-I-IN, January 2002.

Flint, L. “Chem Demil Plant Decommissioning & Closure System Safety Engineering Lessons Learned,” Proceedings of the 27th International System Safety Conference, 2009.

Unintended Consequences

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Published

2014-02-01

How to Cite

Hardy, T. (2014). Unintended Consequences: Fire in Indiana. Journal of System Safety, 50(1), 8. Retrieved from https://jsystemsafety.com/index.php/jss/article/view/234

Issue

Vol. 50 No. 1 (2014): Catching Safety Problems at the Planning Stage

Section

Columns and Perspectives

Categories

License

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.