Disasters - Names		Disasters - Names

Date:	22nd April 1933
Colliery:	Backworth, Eccles
Cause:	Explosion of firedamp
Lives Lost:	3

An explosion of firedamp involving the deaths of three coalcutting machinemen occurred at about 11.30 p.m. on Saturday, 22nd April, at Backworth "Eccles" Colliery, Northumberland. The accident occurred at the rise and return end of the "C" conveyor face in the West Beaumont Drift District of the Beaumont Seam. Figure 4 shows the layout of the ventilating district, the course of the ventilation, the positions of ventilating doors and sheets and the quantities of air passing in the return airway as measured on the morning of the explosion. The seam had a general dip of 1 in 3.5 to the South; the loading gate was level, the "C" face on the line of full dip and the cross-heading to this face rose at 1 in 5.3.

The seam worked, 3 ft. 3 ins, thick, was overlain by 22 feet of blue shale and rested on a seggar floor 2 ft. 4 ins, thick, a bottom coal, 1 ft. 3 ins, thick, being unworked. The coal was worked on the advancing longwall system, undercut to a depth of four feet at the foot of the seam and loaded on to a shaker conveyor. All machinery was electrically driven, the shaker conveyor by an engine situated at the rise end of the face. Top canches 5 ft. 3 ins. thick were blasted in the cross-heading, loading gate and tailgate, these roads being packed 12 ft. 6 ins., 10 ft. and 9 ft. 6 ins, wide, respectively; shots were occasionally fired in the coal.

Approved safety lamps were in use throughout the mine, electric cap-lamps and flame lamps being issued in about equal proportions. The coal-cutting machinemen used electric cap-lamps with the addition of one flame lamp for each team.

Coal-filling on the "C" face ceased between noon and 1.0 p.m. on the day of the accident. A team of four men then moved the face conveyor forward to its new position, ascending from the mine shortly after 7.30 p.m. Contrary to their usual custom they did not start up the conveyor engine to ascertain that it was in proper working order. The cables were connected to the conveyor motor and the gate-end switch and so left, and the gate-end switch and the switch at the conveyor motor were both left in the "off" position.

The face was undercut by three machinemen, Thomas Livingstone, Thomas Chater and Peter Anderson. They commenced cutting at the dip end of the face about 1.0 p.m. The face was 110 yards long and the cut was normally completed within the shift, but on this occasion various mishaps to the haulage chain and sprocket delayed the work and the cut had only just been completed when the explosion occurred at 11.30 p.m.

About 5.30 p.m. Chater complained to the men moving the conveyor forward that his electric cap-lamp was not giving a proper light. One of these men handed over his own cap-lamp and took away the flame safety lamp issued to the machinemen in accordance with General Regulation 132 (v). Thus, for the remainder of the shift, the machinemen had no flame safety lamp.

At 11.30 p.m. the deputy in charge of the district, Thomas Richardson, was standing on the mothergate near the bottom of the cross-heading when he was knocked down and his flame safety lamp was extinguished by a blast which came down the crossheading. He was so dazed that he forgot there was a telephone quite near at hand and made his way in the dark to the shaft bottom, 1,200 yards distant, where he told the onsetter of his fears.

A number of men were at the surface waiting to descend, and a party of them in charge of William Tait, an overman, left the shaft about 12.15 a.m. and accompanied Richardson to the scene of the explosion. Mr. Inglis, the Manager, overtook them at "C" loading gate and the party recovered the bodies of the three machinemen, all of them badly burned on head and arms.

A compressed-air jet was blowing with the nozzle underneath the canch of the cross-heading. The trailing cable was drawn out of the machine, the plug lying some seven yards away between the conveyor and the face. The other end of the cable was found disconnected from the gate-end switch; all switches were in the off position.

The seat of the explosion was at or near the top canch in the cross-heading and the point of ignition at the same place or not far away. The flame must have travelled a considerable distance down the cross-heading as a piece of scorched paper was found 115 yards from the face. The wood door between the cross-heading and the return airway was blown down and the return-wheel sheet-iron guard, which was hanging down prior to the explosion, was blown down the cross-heading. The cross-heading was well stone-dusted and coal dust did not enter into the explosion here.

There was definite coking on the face props for a distance of 70 yards from the rise end. The face was dusty and the flame was probably propagated by coal dust.

Some 13 hours after the explosion there was an accumulation of firedamp at the canch in the cross-heading and an accumulation at the face from the cross-heading to the fast end. It will be noted that an airway was maintained along the ribside behind the pack and that, although three of the stentons from the cross-heading into this airway were open, the quantity of air ventilating the fast end of the face measured 2,500 cubic feet per minute.

The presence of firedamp at the top of the cross-heading had been reported fairly regularly from the beginning of the year. It was reported on the day of the explosion and for three days before. A sample of the general body of the air on "C" face, collected by the management on the morning before the explosion, contained, upon analysis, 0.9 per cent. CH4.

At 9.15 a.m. on the day of the accident, Mr. Inglis found the cross-heading canch clear, as high as he could reach with his lamp when standing on the floor. There was a trace of firedamp at the canch in "C" tailgate and he instructed Tait, the overman, to move the tight sheet nearer the face. Tait examined the cross-heading at 11.0 a.m. and found about two per cent, of firedamp in the canch. He had the tight sheet in the tailgate moved nearer the face, in accordance with the Manager's instructions, and a hurdle sheet erected in the canch of the cross-heading. These measures, it was stated, proved effective in removing the gas.

Jonathan Harrison the deputy in charge when the machinemen commenced work, found firedamp in the cross-heading canch about 2.0 p.m. and reported it. Thinking it impossible to remove the gas with brattice cloth he fixed a compressed-air jet near one face of the canch and turned the air on about three-quarter full. Half an hour later, and on two or three subsequent visits, he found the canch clear so far as he could reach when standing on the floor.

Thomas Richardson, who took charge of the district when Harrison left, paid his first visit to "C" face at 7.30 p.m. The machine was then about the middle of the face. Harrison had told him of the finding of the firedamp but he could not detect any although he stood on chock wood about one foot high, which enabled him to reach the roof at the sides but not in the middle of the road. He visited again between 8.0 and 9.0 p.m., then finally, at 11.0 p.m., when he stayed 15 minutes. On arrival he tested at the canch in the cross-heading, standing on the chock wood as before. He says he reduced the flame of his safety lamp and closed the bottom air-inlet, but did not ask the machinemen to switch off their electric lamps. He stated that he found the canch and the face clear. When he left at 11.15 p.m. there was about three yards of coal remaining to be cut and he estimated that this would take about ten minutes. Chater was at the front end of the machine and Livingstone and Anderson just behind. Richardson did not tell them of the firedamp which had been found earlier in the shift. He went to the bottom of the cross-heading and had been there about five minutes when the explosion occurred.

I am not at all satisfied that sufficient attention was paid to the ventilation of this district. Firedamp was reported from time to time for several months, so that the warning was there day by day, yet nothing effective seems to have been done to improve the ventilation. The necessity of such a temporary expedient as the use of a jet of compressed air should not have been allowed to arise.

There was no direct evidence of the cause of ignition and at the Inquest proceedings the jury found that the evidence was insufficient to show the cause. The electric safety lamps from the affected area were tested at the Mines Department Testing Station, Sheffield, and may be excluded as possible sources of ignition. The position of the cables and switches at the time appeared to rule out electricity as a possible cause, but the question was thoroughly investigated by Messrs. G. M. Harvey and R. Crawford, Deputy Electrical Inspector and Junior Electrical Inspector, respectively. They came to the conclusion that electricity played no part. Shotfiring may be excluded. Prior to the explosion the last shot in the district was fired at about 5.0 p.m. at the face of "C" loading gate.

As the result of intensive search, portions of spent matches and cigarette ends were found near the gate-end switches on the crossheading. All other possible sources of ignition having, to my mind, been satisfactorily eliminated, I consider that the finding of these articles, although only circumstantial evidence, points strongly to the cause of the accident.

Searching of the workmen for contraband was carried out at the surface on a system approved by me. The system provided for, inter alia, the searching of ten per cent, of each shift, the searching of every single person not forming part of a shift, and a general search at least once in every three months. The last general search was made less than a month before the accident, with negative results.

It is not easy to prevent prohibited articles being taken into the mine, especially, of course, in the case of deliberate concealment, but managers should satisfy themselves by personal observation that searching is carried out thoroughly in the manner prescribed by Section 35 of the Coal Mines Act, 1911, and the Order dated 21st May, 1912.

Source:

1933 Mines Inspectors Report

	Anderson, Peter Richard, Machine Man, explosion of firedamp
	Chater, Thomas, Machine Man, explosion of firedamp
	Livingstone, Thomas, Machine Man, explosion of firedamp
	All names found

24 Apr 1933

Three Miners Killed, Northumberland Colliery Explosion (The Times)

 

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