Buckhannon, W.Va. – A lightning strike a mile from the mouth of the Sago Mine probably sent an electrical pulse along a power line, ultimately igniting methane gas and causing the explosion that killed 12 miners, a consultant hired by the mine owner said Wednesday.
The electrical charge apparently flowed from a tree to a power line 300 feet away and into the mine, said Thomas Novak, a Virginia Tech mining professor hired by International Coal Group Inc. to investigate the blast.
Once inside, the charge traveled along a steel conveyor belt hanging from a metal mesh roof support, stopping just feet away from the sealed-off section where the blast occurred.
Though there was a gap between the roof mesh in front of the seal and the roof mesh behind it, as required by law, the resistance to electricity there was very low, Novak testified during the second day of hearings into the Jan. 2 explosion that occurred about 2 miles into the West Virginia mine.
“Lightning doesn’t have to strike something directly” to cause an explosion, Novak said, but he agreed that his investigation could be characterized as a “hypothesis.”
ICG announced in March that its own investigation pointed to lightning as the cause, though it could not explain the precise route the electricity took.
State and federal investigators have yet to announce their findings and indicated skepticism Wednesday as they repeatedly challenged ICG to defend its theory.
The hearings were to last two days but have been extended into today.
Though some families of the fallen miners see ICG’s theory as plausible, many have questioned it, and one asked United Mine Workers president Cecil Roberts to represent them during the interrogation that followed Novak’s presentation.
ICG’s belief that lightning caused the explosion is an attempt to influence public opinion before the state and the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration complete their investigations, said Sarah Jane Bailey, whose father, George Hamner, died in the mine.
ICG president Ben Hatfield said the company conducted its own investigation because it needed to reopen the mine sooner than regulators could finish theirs.
Although rare, lightning strikes have been known to cause underground explosions.
A 2001 report by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health blamed lightning for seven coal mine explosions that occurred in sealed, abandoned areas. In most cases, the seals on the worked-out sections were destroyed, as they were at Sago. Severe thunderstorms moved through the area the morning of the Sago explosion.
“This is very strong evidence that just can’t be ignored as mere coincidence,” Novak said.
Earlier Wednesday, a state mining inspector testified that his screams for help may have been the source of the early misinformation that 12 miners had survived the explosion.
Bill Tucker was with the rescue team that found the miners behind a curtain more than 2 miles inside. “I don’t recall the exact words I used, and I didn’t have a radio, I was just screaming out for help,” Tucker said. “I think I said, ‘They’re alive,’ and that may have been part of the communication error.” Only after he started checking the miners’ conditions did he realize only one – Randal McCloy Jr. – had a pulse. “I picked up the radio and I hollered over the radio that we only have one (alive),” Tucker said.
