WASHINGTON — The main cause of the natural-gas pipeline rupture in San Bruno, Calif., that killed eight people and burned down three dozen houses last September was 54 years of bad management by Pacific Gas & Electric Co., and state and federal regulators who did not notice the problem, the National Transportation Safety Board said Tuesday.
The pipeline ruptured at a spot where utility workers installed bad pipe in 1956, skipping half the welds and either not inspecting the finished product or grossly misinterpreting the results, investigators said.
But it was not a one-time lapse: The company failed to maintain records or assess risk, to understand its own computerized control centers or to learn from other recent accidents, the investigative agency’s staff said Tuesday.
After the rupture, the company spent an extra hour shutting off the gas because of poor planning and organization, according to the board.
A PG&E spokesman said the company was focused on following NTSB recommendations.
“We’ve acknowledged our past operations and our past record-keeping procedures were not what they should have been,” he said.
The New York Times
