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Mine Accidents    Mine Disasters    Upper Big Branch Mine Explosion
Mining Accident and Disasters
Massey Energy Company
Upper Big Branch Mine Explosion
 Montcoal, West Virginia
April 5, 2010
29 Killed



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Senate Hearing - April 27, 2010


News Articles:
Upper Big Branch Mine Victims
No. Name Date of Birth Age
1 Carl Acord 01/07/58 52
2 Jason Matthew Atkins 09/14/84 25
3 Christopher Lee Bell, Sr. 09/14/76 33
4 Gregory Steven Brock 01/08/63 47
5 Kenneth A. Chapman 09/17/56 53
6 Robert Eugene Clark 02/20/69 41
7 Charles Timothy Davis, Sr. 09/17/58 51
8 Cory Thomas Davis 05/22/89 20
9 Michael Lee Elswick unknown 56
10 William Ildon Griffith 09/12/55 54
11 Steven J. Harrah 02/27/70 40
12 Dean Jones unknown 47
13 Richard Keith Lane 07/14/64 45
14 William Roosevelt Lynch 03/24/51 59
15 Joe Marcum unknown 57
16 Ronald Lee Maynor unknown 33
17 Nicholas McCroskey 10/29/83 26
18 James "Eddie" Mooney  unknown 51
19 Adam Keith Morgan 05/10/88 21
20 Rex Lane Mullins 02/01/60 50
21 Josh Scott Napper 08/22/84 25
22 Howard "Boone" Payne unknown 52
23 Dillard Earl Persinger 10/16/77 32
24 Joel R. Price 12/01/54 55
25 Gary Wayne Quarles 07/01/76 33
26 Deward Allan Scott 10/17/51 58
27 Grover Dale Skeens 08/18/52 57
28 Benny Ray Willingham 05/14/48 61
29 Ricky Workman 07/04/59 50

Average age of the 29 miners:

44.28 yrs.

Oldest miner killed:

Benny Willingham, 61

Youngest miner killed:

Cory Davis, 20


Massey Energy: 25 dead in W.Va. mine explosion
Associated Press
April 6, 2010

MONTCOAL, W.Va. - An explosion at a remote coal mine with a history of safety problems killed 25 workers and at least four others were still missing early Tuesday more than a thousand feet underground in the worst U.S. mine disaster since 1984.

Rescuers had been making their way to the area where the miners were believed trapped at Massey Energy Co.'s sprawling Upper Big Branch mine, where the blast occurred around 3 p.m. Monday.  However, safety officials said at a news conference that the search was suspended because rising methane gas levels in the mine made it a high risk for another explosion.

Earlier, Kevin Stricklin, an administrator for the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration, said officials hoped some of the missing survived the initial blast and were able to reach airtight chambers stocked with food, water and enough oxygen for them to live for four days.  However, rescue teams made it to one of two nearby shelters and it was empty.  The gas levels prevented them from reaching the second.

Massey Energy and safety officials confirmed that 25 bodies were found.  The death toll had risen from seven earlier in the day to 12 at about midnight.  A total of 29 miners were in the area when the blast happened, he said.

"It does not appear that any of the individuals made it to a rescue chamber," Stricklin said at a news conference.  "The situation is dire."

State mining director Ron Wooten said though the situation does not seem promising to reach the four still missing, rescuers wouldn't give up.

"We haven't given up hope at all," he said.

In 1984, 27 were killed by a fire at Emery Mining Corp.'s mine in Orangeville, Utah.

Benny R. Willingham, 62, who was five weeks away from retiring, was among those killed in West Virginia, said his sister-in-law Sheila Prillaman.

He had mined for 30 years, the last 17 with Massey, and planned to take his wife on a cruise to the Virgin Islands next month, she said.

"Benny was the type - he probably wouldn't have stayed retired long," Prillaman said.  "He wasn't much of a homebody."

Prillaman said family members were angry because they learned of Willingham's death after reading it on a list Massey posted, instead of being contacted by the company, which said it wouldn't release names until next of kin were notified.

Though the cause of the blast was not known, the operation about 30 miles south of Charleston has a history of violations for not properly ventilating highly combustible methane gas, safety officials said.

Miners were leaving on a vehicle that takes them in and out of the mine's long shaft when a crew ahead of them felt a blast of air and went back to investigate, Stricklin said.

They found nine workers, seven of whom were dead.  Others were hurt or missing about a mile and a half inside the mine.

Massey Energy, a publicly traded company based in Richmond, Va., has 2.2 billion tons of coal reserves in southern West Virginia, eastern Kentucky, southwest Virginia and Tennessee, according to the company's Web site.  It ranks among the nation's top five coal producers and is among the industry's most profitable.  It has a spotty safety record.

In the past year, federal inspectors have fined the company more than $382,000 for repeated serious violations involving its ventilation plan and equipment at Upper Big Branch, which is run by subsidiary Performance Coal Co.  The violations also cover failing to follow the plan, allowing combustible coal dust to pile up, and having improper firefighting equipment.

The mine has had three other fatalities in the last dozen years.

Methane is one of the great dangers of coal mining, and federal records say the Eagle coal seam releases up to 2 million cubic feet of methane gas into the Upper Big Branch mine every 24 hours, which is a large amount, said Dennis O'Dell, health and safety director for the United Mine Workers labor union.

The colorless, odorless gas is often sold to American consumers to heat homes and cook meals.  In mines, giant fans are used to keep methane concentrations below certain levels.  If concentrations are allowed to build up, the gas can explode with a spark roughly similar to the static charge created by walking across a carpet in winter, as at the Sago mine, also in West Virginia where 12 were killed in 2006.

Since then, federal and state regulators have required mine operators to store extra oxygen supplies.  Upper Big Branch uses containers that can generate about an hour of breathable air, and all miners carry a container on their belts besides the stockpiles inside the mine.

Rescuers trying to reach the trapped miners had found evidence that some workers took emergency oxygen supplies from a cache in the mine, Stricklin said.

West Virginia requires all underground mines to have wireless communications and tracking systems designed to survive explosions and other disasters.  However, Stricklin said much of the network near the missing men was likely destroyed in the explosion.

Blankenship said the names of the dead and injured would not be released until next-of-kin were notified.

"West Virginians are tough, we will bind together," said U.S. Rep. Nick Rahall, whose district includes where the mine is located.

The mine, which cannot be seen from the road, has 19 openings and roughly 7-foot ceilings.  Inside, it's crisscrossed with railroad tracks used for hauling people and equipment.  It is located in a mine-laced swath of Raleigh and Boone counties that is the heart of West Virginia's coal country.

The seam produced 1.2 million tons of coal in 2009, according to the mine safety agency, and has about 200 employees, most of whom work underground on different shifts.

In each of the last three years, Massey has had multiple operations cited by MSHA as repeat violators of safety and health rules and ordered to improve their conditions.  Upper Big Branch was not one of them.

Last year, the number of miners killed on the job in the U.S. fell for a second straight year to 34, the fewest since officials began keeping records nearly a century ago.  That was down from the previous low of 52 in 2008.

Rescuers bang pipe in W.Va. coal mine; no response
Associated Press
Houston Chronicle
April 7, 2010

MONTCOAL, W.Va. - Rescuers drilled a first hole into a coal mine where 25 people died in an explosion but got no response from possible survivors when they banged on the drill pipe Wednesday to send a signal.  Three more vents needed to be bored to release poison gases before searchers could look for four people still missing in the worst U.S. mining accident in over two decades.

Gov. Joe Manchin said the first hole reached the Upper Big Branch Mine after boring through about 1,090 feet of earth and rock.  Rescuers banged on the drill pipe for 15 minutes in hopes of being heard below ground.

"We did not get any response back," Manchin said at an early morning briefing.  Officials said they also planned to set off a small explosion on the surface to send a seismic signal down to the mine.

The company that runs the mine, Massey Energy Co., frequently sidesteps hefty fines by aggressively contesting safety violations, including recent problems with the ventilation system that clears away combustible methane gas.

Bombarding federal regulators with appeals is an increasingly common industry tactic since the 2006 Sago mine disaster that killed 12 led to stiffer fines and new enforcement to punish the worst offenders, according to an Associated Press review of records from the Mine Safety and Health Administration.

Massey is still contesting more than a third of all its violations at the Montcoal, W.Va., mine since 2007.  In the past year, federal inspectors have proposed more than $1 million in fines for violations at the mine.  Only 16 percent have been paid.

Federal regulators planned to review its violations, many of which involved venting methane gas.  If the odorless, colorless gas is not kept at safe levels, a small spark can ignite it.

In an interview Tuesday with AP, Massey CEO Don Blankenship downplayed the link between the ventilation system and the accident.

"I don't know that MSHA thought there was a problem," he said.

Manchin said the first drill hole entered the section of the mine about a football field's length away from a rescue chamber where officials hope the miners sought refuge from toxic gas.

Two days after the blast that also left two hospitalized, the buildup of methane gas and carbon monoxide was too dangerous for anyone to enter and look for the missing or to recover the bodies of 18 known dead.

Crews continued to drill three additional holes, all of which are meant to monitor the section's air and ventilate it with high pressure fans.

Seven bodies were brought out after Monday afternoon's blast rocked the mine.

Once the mine is ventilated, teams would need four or five hours to reach the area where officials believe the miners are about 1,000 feet beneath the surface, said Chris Adkins, chief operating officer for Massey Energy Co., which owns the mine.  The long section is about 20 feet wide with barely enough room to stand, a safety official said.

Searchers would have to navigate in the darkness around debris from structures shattered by the explosion and around sections of track that were "wrapped like a pretzel," said Kevin Stricklin, an administrator from the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration.

"There's so much dirt and dust and everything is so dark that it's very easy, as hard as it may seem to any of us outside in this room, to walk by a body," Stricklin said.

The missing miners might have been able to reach airtight chambers stocked with food, water and enough oxygen for four days.  But rescue teams checked one of two chambers nearby and found it empty.  Unsafe conditions prevented them from reaching the second.

Manchin said he continues to meet with the families, but had no updates regarding the two injured miners pulled to the surface after the explosion.

"The families are very resilient," said the governor, flanked by state and federal safety officials.  "They know the odds are against us."

The death toll was the highest in a U.S. mine since 1984, when 27 people died in a fire at Emery Mining Corp.'s mine in Orangeville, Utah.  If the four missing bring the total to 29, it would be the most to die in a U.S. coal mine since a 1970 explosion killed 38 at Finley Coal Co. in Hyden, Ky.

At the time of the explosion, 61 miners were in the mine.

Nine were leaving on a vehicle that takes them in and out of the shaft when a crew ahead of them felt a blast of air and went back to investigate, said MSHA administrator Stricklin.

In the area about 30 miles south of Charleston where coal is king, people anxiously awaited word on the missing.

Larry Asbury's son is on a mine rescue team.  Asbury joined about 50 mourners who packed the creaky pews of the modest St. Joseph Catholic Church a few miles from the disaster to honor the victims and pray that the missing turn up safe.

"The coal community is coming together and praying for miners and their families," he said.  "It's just so important to show the community this kind of support."

Diana Davis said her husband, Timmy Davis, 51, died in the explosion along with his nephews, Josh Napper, 27, and Cory Davis, 20.

The elder Davis' son, Timmy Davis Jr., described his father as passionate about the outdoors and the mines.  "He loved to work underground," the younger Davis said.  Two other family members survived, he said.

During pauses at Tuesday's service at St.  Joseph's, some leaned over and consoled each other.

"It's such a terrible time for West Virginia, but it's so important to ask for God's help," said Bishop Michael J.  Bransfield.

Though the situation looked bleak, the governor pointed to the 2006 Sago Mine explosion that killed 12. Crews found miner Randal McCloy Jr.  alive after he was trapped for more than 40 hours in an atmosphere poisoned with carbon monoxide.

Associated Press writers Greg Bluestein, Allen G. Breed, Vicki Smith, Tom Breen and Tim Huber in West Virginia and Sam Hananel in Washington contributed to this report.