NPR's Morning Edition dropped a bombshell earlier today. Two months before the Upper Big Branch explosion,an electrician was ordered to disable a key safety device.
On Feb. 13, an electrician deliberately disabled a methane gas monitor on a continuous mining machine because the monitor repeatedly shut down the machine.
Three witnesses say the electrician was ordered by a mine supervisor to "bridge" the automatic shutoff mechanism in the monitor.
Listen to the full story here:
If I'm the supervisor who issued that order or the electrician who carried it out, I'd have a lawyer on speed dial. Disabling a methane monitor is blatantly illegal, according to the MSHA.
How significant is this? Well, back in April, rescuers had to pull back at least TWICE because methane levels were still off the scale even though there was no active production.
According to Ricky Campbell, a former miner at Upper Big Branch, the electrician knew what he was doing was not only dangerous, but career-threatening.
"The electrician said, 'Please don't say nothing,' " Campbell remembers, adding the electrician was afraid he would lose his state certification. "He knew it was dangerous. He knew he shouldn't have been doing it. But when somebody higher up [is] telling you to do something, you're going to do what they say. And he just [did] his job and [did] what they said to do."
The electrician does not deny the incident happened but declined to be interviewed.
Two other miners saw the bridging, but spoke anonymously because they don't want to be fired the way Campbell was for speaking out about the appalling safety conditions at that mine.
We already know that the methane was so high on a regular basis in that mine that veteran miners lived in active fear. We also know that Don Blankenship frequently pressured his people to "run coal" above all else--and safety be hanged. But were they being this brazen about it? It certainly sounds like it, according to this story.
Update: Even if this didn't directly cause the explosion two months later, this incident alone puts Massey in hot water, as it'll be stark proof of how cavalier the company is about safety. Official statements aside, you've still got those internal emails about running coal. If, however, it can even be tangientally connected to the explosion, then there's no question about it--this company needs to be sued out of existence.