As far as I can tell the whole building is completely gone, and the biggest things there are the burning cars in the parking lot.
It seems their name was accurate; it is was real energetic there.
It sounds like a lot of fatalities.
I’m guessing their leading theory is it was caused by explosives.
Given the level of destruction they’ll probably never figure out who screwed up how.
This tragedy was either the result of a horrible safety failure or people who were too successful at their jobs, depending on your point of view.
Some details (including that they made RDX).
An explosives plant probably ought to have closed-circuit cameras to an offsite data storage, just for situations like this. Whether that was the case here, I don’t know.
Seen on Facebook:
Thorough. Very thorough.
I wonder if the arc of unnatural-looking green stuff at the bottom right is an artifact of the firefighting efforts or is a witness mark of e.g. building insulation whose arc suggests where the point of origin of at least one of the major blasts was?
That’s even worse than the time the self-destruct mechanism got hit and blew itself up.
It looks like everything in that plant that could blow up, did blow up.
I heard that they made land mines and such. Does anyone know what they did make? Bunker busters? Jeez.
From their website:
USA Today says 19 missing.
I noticed those in the first helicopter video of the site. Here’s a closer look
And I read a Facebook post comment section last night that included several current and former employees of the company, and someone asked about those. They are cylinders that explosive booster charges are packed into. (Poured, while liquid, I think. That building worked with liquid mixtures on the 2nd floor.)
ETA: they are probably the “topcap boosters” mentioned in the above quoted section from their website.
Big bada boom!
Eighteen missing and presumed dead; the nineteenth was found at home. (Clearly the right day to be running late for work.)
There is always sabotage. How much of their military stuff has ended in Ukraine, and how hard is this plant to replace?
Explosions and uncontrolled fires are a constant hazard with any facility that works with energetic substances or produces flammable dust or gas. The United States Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (USCSB) has a YouTube channel with plenty of examples of energetic facility accidents resulting from an lack of industrial safety measures and culture. As for this particular facility, details have already come to light regarding prior incidents and safety issues:
Hickman County explosive manufacturer committed several violations
The explosives manufacturing facility at the heart of the massive explosion had previously committed several serious safety violations, according to a report from the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development obtained by The Tennessean.
The Tennessee Occupational Safety and Health Administration conducted an inspection of Accurate Energetic Systems’ facility in McEwen in April 2019, after receiving reports of five serious violations. One, for example, was that employees were permitted to consume food or beverages in areas exposed to toxic materials.
Specifically, in this case, the employer hadn’t ensured surfaces in the break room, including the table and microwave, were kept free from the hazardous chemical cyclonite – a powerful high explosive classified as a toxic substance according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The lack of controls over toxic and energetic substances is indicative of a lack safety culture or cost cutting for filtering and chemical monitoring systems. An explosive system production or assembly building will have bulk energetic materials in addition to finished products, and it is really easy to cause an ignition chain if these materials are not adequately controlled. Having worked with ordnance and propellants for going on twenty-five years I don’t think there is a single production facility that I’ve been to that hasn’t had some kind of serious incident in its history even if not as dramatic as this one, and in one case a facility explosion that essentially caused a large solid propellant motor manufacturer to shutter.
Stranger
So do you mean that it was probably not sabotage or that sabotage is particularly easy to perform and disguise in that kind of facility?
In Tennessee, nothing is ever done.
Until afterwards.
And then–symbolic.
I’m impressed that Tennessee has a place called Bucksnort. And it’s located in Hickman county, if you please. Sounds like a place that, if there were an explosives manufacturing facility there, would follow absolutely the most rigorous safety standards! What could possibly go wrong in Bucksnort, apparently named after a place where you could get a snort of moonshine for a buck?
