Overview

'Disastrous Dinners' is an ongoing series of informal events, including a short dinner and a presentation about a past incident, largely focusing on human factors and lessons learnt. The events are intended to encourage discussion with the series including incidents from outside the process industries. As a result there should be something for everyone to learn from, not only chemical engineers.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the explosion at the Flixborough Nypro Chemicals site near Scunthorpe, UK, which killed 28 people and injured 36 others on 1 June 1974. It resulted in the almost complete destruction of the plant. Further afield, the blast injured another 53 people and caused extensive damage to around 2,000 buildings. With the exception of the Buncefield fire in 2005, it remains the biggest post war explosion in the UK.

In this presentation, we will look at what happened in the months and weeks before the explosion and the reasons for the loss of containment and subsequent explosion. Most importantly, we will discuss why this incident was a catalyst for change in the management of process safety and why ‘Flixborough’ continues to be remembered in the process industry.

Agenda

• 18:30 - Meet and greet in the bar area.
• 18:45 - Dinner, presentation and discussion.
• 21:00 - Close.

Speaker

Lorraine Braben, Human Factors Specialist, Lorraine Braben Consulting Ltd

Lorraine is a Chartered human factors specialist, chemical engineer and qualified HR practitioner. Having spent her career working on COMAH sites, she has experienced the results of engineering design and business practices which unwittingly influence behaviour and impact on safe operation of plant and equipment. Now running her own CIEHF-accredited consultancy, Lorraine offers support to clients in the assessment, delivery and training of human factors related topics.