Faulty Repair Led to Deadly Plant Explosion, Safety Panel Finds

An exploding high-pressure water tank that killed four workers in St. Louis, Mo., was caused by a faulty repair and no inspection programs to spot the problem, the US Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board said Friday in its first report in almost a year.

The CSB’s findings on the April 3, 2017, explosion at the Loy-Lange Box Co. largely concur with what the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration concluded when OSHA cited the company in September 2017. The explosion also led to a $47 million settlement in 2019 of lawsuits filed by families of the dead workers and ...