Past lessons, tomorrow's safety
15 Jan 2000
Process industry disasters like Flixborough, Piper Alpha, Seveso and many others could be prevented in the future thanks to a new software package available from the Institution of Chemical Engineers, writes Dinesh Fernando, head of the IChemE's safety, health and environment development.
Accidents do not simply happen; they occur because of human error, failures of mechanical and electrical system, and failures in systems of work. Bitter experience has shown all too often that a routine task, say isolation for maintenance, can still pose threat to life. In 1989 in Pasadena, Texas, ethylene leaked from a length of pipe that had been breached to clear a choke. The isolation valve had inadvertently been left open. The resulting explosion killed 23 people, caused $750million damage and threw debris over a six mile radius. Yet only one year before, the Pipe Alpha explosion that killed 167 offshore operators was caused by condensate leaking from an incorrectly fitted blind flange installed during maintenance.
Although widely reported, how can we be sure that the lessons to be learnt from these accidents - the need for fail-safe back-up and adherence to written operating procedures - will be impressed on the minds of process engineers, now and in the future?
These days, accident reports that are in the public domain are relatively easy to access, but confidential records of other companies? How valuable would be a database that collated thousands of accident records, both public and confidential, and presented them in an easily accessible format, right to your desk top? Well, for just £800 you can find out.
The new IChemE CD-ROM, The Accident Database, brings together over 10,500 accident and near-miss reports from all over the world - 3000 of which were previously unpublished and confidential.
Engineers can search the information and learn of incidents involving the processes, equipment and substances relevant to their business. The records are searchable by various criteria: activity, cause, consequence, equipment and substance.
If you're involved in getting authorisation for a new process, the new COMAH (Control of Major Accident Hazard) regulations require that all relevant safety aspects have been considered and included in the safety report. HSE assessors will be looking for evidence of extensive knowledge of risks associated with that process or substance - a powerful argument for acquiring the database, which will be updated on a yearly basis.
