On September 4,1997, Fire Chief Joel Merchant of Allegan Fire Department and firefighter Lt. Areaux from Hopkins Fire Department were starting their day. They filled three cylinders in their MAKO 3100-3 Air Station and began to fill the remaining two. "All of a sudden, she cut loose" explains Chief Merchant. At 8:00 am a cylinder ruptured inside the fill station while Chief Merchant was standing directly in front of it and firefighter Lt. Areaux off to the side. No one was harmed.

At 8:10 am Chief Merchant called Paul Staples at Air Source One and said, "I have a cylinder that blew up and a fill station that saved my life this morning". The MAKO Air Station contained both fragments of the cylinder, all pieces of valves, handles, connections and the steel trays the cylinders sat on. The Fill Station showed external dents but no breech of the 1/4" plate steel unit. The schrapnel from the ruptured cylinder sheered the valve from the opposing cylinder and also dented it.

It is our opinion, there is no one to blame for this rupture. There had to be at least one stress crack in the neck of the cylinder that had caused the rupture. The cylinder had been hydro tested three years ago and was not over pressurized. The cylinder has special permit markings that should have been stamped with an exemption number at the hydro test facility and was not. Specific details regarding this ruptured cylinder are pending US-DOT investigation.

Due to the fact the filling process was done in a certified containment fill station, all people in and around the area were unharmed in this incident. The only thing that might have prevented the cylinder from rupturing would be visual cylinder inspections regularly. Traditionally there are two ruptures in the United States per year, in 1996 there were six and currently in 1997 this is the fifth. Such a dramatic increase cannot be ignored. Although the only real solution is to always keep the safest conditions in and around the work place as Allegan City Fire Department has done and provide proper training.

Theresa Staples
Marketing Manager
Air Source One, Inc.

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