Nypro (UK)
of Flixborough, north Lincolnshire.
Owner of a major chemical plant at Flixborough which suffered a catastrophc explosion in 1974
Flixborough Disaster
1974 June 1st.[1]
An explosion at the Flixborough plant killed 28 people and seriously injured 36 out of a total of only 72 people on site at the time.
The chemical works, owned by Nypro UK (a joint venture between Dutch State Mines (DSM) and the British National Coal Board (NCB)) had originally produced fertiliser from by-products of the coke ovens of a nearby steelworks.
Since 1967, it had instead produced caprolactam, a chemical used in the manufacture of nylon 6. The caprolactam was produced from cyclohexanone. This was originally produced by hydrogenation of phenol, but in 1972 additional capacity was added built to a DSM design in which hot liquid cyclohexane was partially oxidised by compressed air. The plant was intended to produce 70,000 tpa (tons per annum) of caprolactam but was reaching a rate of only 47,000 tpa in early 1974. Government controls on the price of caprolactam put further financial pressure on the plant.
It was a failure of this plant that led to the disaster. A major leak of liquid from the reactor circuit caused the rapid formation of a large cloud of flammable hydrocarbon. When this met an ignition source (probably a furnace at a nearby hydrogen production plant) there was a massive fuel-air explosion. The plant control room collapsed, killing all 18 occupants. Nine other site workers were killed, and a delivery driver died of a heart attack in his cab. Fires were started on-site which were still burning 10 days later. Around 1,000 buildings within a mile radius of the site (in Flixborough itself, and in the neighbouring villages of Burton upon Stather and Amcotts) were damaged, as were nearly 800 in Scunthorpe (three miles away); the blast was heard over thirty miles away in Grimsby and Hull. Images of the disaster were soon shown on television due to BBC and Yorkshire Television filmstock news crews who had been covering the Appleby-Frodingham Gala in Scunthorpe that afternoon.
The plant was re-built but cyclohexanone was now produced by hydrogenation of phenol (Nypro proposed to produce the hydrogen from LPG; in the absence of timely advice from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) planning permission for storage of 1200 te LPG at Flixborough was initially granted subject to HSE approval, but HSE objected); as a result of a subsequent collapse in the price of nylon it closed down a few years later. The site was demolished in 1981, although the administration block still remains. The site today is home to the Flixborough Industrial Estate, occupied by various businesses and Glanford Power Station.[2].
1974 September. The Court of enquiry shifted from Scunthorpe to London. The first technical hearing with the bland admission from Kenneth Jupe QC for Nypro UK that they accepted full responsibility for the installation an "inappropriate system".[3]