WEBVTT - The Factory That Was Wiped Off The Map (From Cautionary Tales) 0:00:17.560 --> 0:00:19.040 Pushkin too quick. 0:00:19.240 --> 0:00:24.680 No, it's perfect Pushkin stuff. You got it. Hey, it's 0:00:24.759 --> 0:00:28.200 Jacob Business. History is on a break this week, so 0:00:28.280 --> 0:00:30.680 we're going to play you an episode of another Pushkin 0:00:30.720 --> 0:00:34.120 show called Cautionary Tales. The show is hosted by the 0:00:34.120 --> 0:00:37.879 great Tim Harford, and this episode is the story of 0:00:37.920 --> 0:00:41.760 a factory, in particular, the story of what seemed like 0:00:41.760 --> 0:00:46.120 a small thing leading eventually to a terrible disaster. 0:00:49.640 --> 0:00:54.840 Lincolnshire, on the east coast of England, sparsely populated and 0:00:55.000 --> 0:00:58.960 largely rural. Few great moments of history have been made here. 0:00:59.840 --> 0:01:03.760 Large towns are also few. People tend to live in 0:01:03.840 --> 0:01:08.800 small villages, engaged in such bucolic activities as potato farming 0:01:08.880 --> 0:01:12.840 and pig husbandry. It seems hard to believe that Lincolnshire 0:01:12.960 --> 0:01:18.280 is on anyone's radar. The county is famed for something though, 0:01:19.000 --> 0:01:25.319 being flat, and that flatness has given Lincolnshire a geopolitical significance. 0:01:26.600 --> 0:01:43.240 It's perfect for air bases. In the early summer of 0:01:43.319 --> 0:01:48.200 nineteen seventy four, Lincolnshire is home to v Force of 0:01:48.240 --> 0:01:53.720 the RAF, the giant Vulcan bombers screaming up this long runway, 0:01:54.000 --> 0:01:57.960 a part of Britain's nuclear deterrent. If the Soviet Union 0:01:58.040 --> 0:02:02.240 launches a surprise atomic strike, these Royal Air Force crews 0:02:02.280 --> 0:02:05.240 have just a few minutes warning to get into the 0:02:05.240 --> 0:02:10.600 air and hit back, devastating karl Markstadt, Minsk or Moscow 0:02:10.680 --> 0:02:18.440 in retaliation. The Vulcan pilots would doubtless have much on 0:02:18.480 --> 0:02:22.120 their minds given the mission ahead, but few wasted time 0:02:22.200 --> 0:02:26.359 in thinking of their return home. The quite reasonable assumption 0:02:26.680 --> 0:02:31.040 is that the Russians would pulverize Lincolnshire and its runways 0:02:31.400 --> 0:02:37.360 while they were away. It's late on a Saturday afternoon 0:02:37.800 --> 0:02:41.320 and farmer Gordon Atkinson is working in a sugar beet 0:02:41.360 --> 0:02:46.400 field near the hamlet of brandy Wharf, but a distant 0:02:46.639 --> 0:02:51.240 noise prompts him to look up from his labors. I 0:02:51.320 --> 0:02:55.519 heard this rumble and thought it's going to be a thunderstorm. 0:02:55.560 --> 0:03:01.520 He said that that rolling boom was no act of God, 0:03:01.840 --> 0:03:07.080 Its origins were man made. An enormous explosion has just 0:03:07.360 --> 0:03:11.120 ripped across northern Lincolnshire. And if that wasn't obvious to 0:03:11.200 --> 0:03:16.120 Gordon Akin, it was all too clear to his elderly mother. 0:03:18.560 --> 0:03:22.640 She's been spending a quiet afternoon at home twenty miles 0:03:22.680 --> 0:03:27.440 near at the epicenter of the detonation. Her house was 0:03:27.560 --> 0:03:36.080 now as shambles. The blast ripped the front door off 0:03:36.120 --> 0:03:39.840 its hinges and sent it rocketing up the staircase to 0:03:39.880 --> 0:03:44.600 the four above. If she could see, missus Atkinson might 0:03:44.600 --> 0:03:48.000 have despaired at the state of her lounge, littered as 0:03:48.000 --> 0:03:52.120 it was with shards of glass and tatters of curtaincloth, 0:03:53.160 --> 0:03:57.120 But she couldn't see. The blast wave had come whooshing 0:03:57.280 --> 0:04:01.119 down the chimney stack, filling the house with a blinding, 0:04:01.440 --> 0:04:07.360 choking veil of soot. People ten, twenty, even thirty miles 0:04:07.360 --> 0:04:12.040 from the explosion stopped in their tracks to look in 0:04:12.080 --> 0:04:21.160 the direction of missus Atkinson's village. Flicksborough teenager Leduena Beckers 0:04:21.360 --> 0:04:24.560 was watching the football on TV with her four brothers, 0:04:25.400 --> 0:04:28.559 rushing to look out the window. The family joked about 0:04:28.560 --> 0:04:32.000 what the source of the noise might be. But then 0:04:32.040 --> 0:04:35.839 we saw the mushroom cloud, dark and ominous in the sky, 0:04:36.720 --> 0:04:43.479 said Ladreena. All laughter in the Beckers household stopped. Had 0:04:43.760 --> 0:04:50.080 World War IIE really begun? I'm Tim Harford and you're 0:04:50.160 --> 0:05:19.719 listening to another cautionary tale. You've probably never heard of. 0:05:19.800 --> 0:05:25.200 Polycaprolactum even by its snappier monica nylon six. But I'll 0:05:25.200 --> 0:05:28.159 bet there's some nylon six within arms reach of you 0:05:28.320 --> 0:05:32.400 right now. It's used in all manner of items. It 0:05:32.480 --> 0:05:36.279 makes the bristles of toothbrushes and the strings of tennis rackets. 0:05:36.800 --> 0:05:41.080 You can find it inside almost every electrical gadget, and 0:05:41.680 --> 0:05:45.800 since nylon six is used to fashion medical implants, you 0:05:45.880 --> 0:05:51.400 might even have some inside you. Nylon six is strong, 0:05:51.760 --> 0:05:55.919 hard and tough. It won't conduct electricity and doesn't taint 0:05:55.960 --> 0:06:00.520 foods it comes into contact with. It's useful stuff, and 0:06:00.560 --> 0:06:03.279 it would be hard to imagine our world without it. 0:06:03.839 --> 0:06:07.080 Flying a plane, driving a car, or even getting dressed 0:06:07.080 --> 0:06:10.799 in the morning would be a very different proposition without 0:06:11.000 --> 0:06:16.120 nylon six. Nylon six was an invention of Nazi Germany. 0:06:16.760 --> 0:06:21.160 The polymer was used to make parachute canopies, tires for warplanes, 0:06:21.560 --> 0:06:25.960 and the toe ropes of gliders. But nylon six production 0:06:26.320 --> 0:06:30.000 really boomed in the post war years, with factories around 0:06:30.040 --> 0:06:33.839 the world pumping out the stuff. Depending on where you lived, 0:06:34.040 --> 0:06:39.200 it might be marketed as Perlon, Nilotron, Ultramid, or Jurathan. 0:06:40.839 --> 0:06:43.640 I won't bore you with the details of its manufacture, 0:06:43.760 --> 0:06:47.600 but this story centers around the production of caprolactum, from 0:06:47.680 --> 0:06:52.160 which nylon six is made. By the nineteen seventies, nylon 0:06:52.240 --> 0:06:56.240 six was in huge demand. The fibers were so ubiquitous 0:06:56.320 --> 0:06:58.400 that there was even a fashion for people to carpet 0:06:58.480 --> 0:07:02.640 their entire homes wall to wall with the stuff. To 0:07:02.680 --> 0:07:06.039 meet this clamor, a joint venture was launched by the 0:07:06.160 --> 0:07:10.760 Dutch State Mines and the British National Coal Board. There 0:07:10.760 --> 0:07:14.320 had been a modest factor tree at Flicksborough making fertilizer 0:07:14.400 --> 0:07:18.600 from the mucky waste from local steel foundries, but now 0:07:19.120 --> 0:07:23.560 under the name Nypro, Flicksburgh was getting into the glamorous 0:07:23.600 --> 0:07:29.520 world of polymers. The plant would be transformed at the 0:07:29.560 --> 0:07:33.360 cost of many millions of pounds, and the workforce would 0:07:33.400 --> 0:07:37.480 swell into the hundreds. Local newspapers soon filled up with 0:07:37.640 --> 0:07:42.840 recruitment ads for chemists, engineers, shorthand typists and canteen staff. 0:07:43.680 --> 0:07:46.760 It was expected the complex would use as much power 0:07:46.840 --> 0:07:49.800 as a city of half a million people, all to 0:07:49.880 --> 0:07:54.960 produce seventy thousand tons of cap prolactum per year. It 0:07:54.960 --> 0:08:02.440 would be Britain's biggest indeed, its only caprolactin plant. Nipro 0:08:02.840 --> 0:08:07.120 was essentially putting all its eggs in one basket, and 0:08:07.160 --> 0:08:11.720 to many this reasoning seemed sound. Building a single megafactory 0:08:11.800 --> 0:08:16.440 of considerable economies of scale, it would simplify transport and 0:08:16.520 --> 0:08:20.440 logistics and allow Nipro to strike bulk buying deals for 0:08:20.640 --> 0:08:26.880 energy and raw materials. So in sleepy rural Lincolnshire, on 0:08:26.960 --> 0:08:30.800 a curve of the Broad River, trend for Nypro works 0:08:30.960 --> 0:08:36.480 quickly took shape. Gargantuan cranes hoisted gleaming steel processing tanks 0:08:36.480 --> 0:08:40.160 into place. Chimneys and cooling towers went up, as did 0:08:40.360 --> 0:08:47.199 tall spindleaf flarestacks. After dark, their flames, along with countless 0:08:47.240 --> 0:08:51.640 strings of lights, picked out the silhouette of the plant 0:08:52.080 --> 0:09:00.599 against the night sky. Dennis Lawrence was one of Nipro's employees. 0:09:01.400 --> 0:09:04.480 He loved the job, he told his family the plant 0:09:04.600 --> 0:09:09.960 was just so modern, so clean. But all was not 0:09:10.240 --> 0:09:16.320 well at Nypro. The target was to produce seventy thousand 0:09:16.480 --> 0:09:20.280 tonnes of caprolactum per year, but by nineteen seventy four, 0:09:20.679 --> 0:09:25.000 two years into the expansion, only forty seven thousand tons 0:09:25.040 --> 0:09:28.480 were likely to leave the factory gate. For Nipro to 0:09:28.520 --> 0:09:31.040 turn a profit, they needed to make more of the 0:09:31.080 --> 0:09:35.080 stuff and quickly. The heart of the factory was a 0:09:35.120 --> 0:09:40.520 series of six identical steel reactor vessels. These cylindrical tanks 0:09:40.520 --> 0:09:44.480 were installed in a line and connected by pipework. The first, 0:09:44.760 --> 0:09:47.920 sixteen foot tall vessel was the highest in this chain, 0:09:48.679 --> 0:09:52.840 The second vessel was placed fourteen inches lower, and so on. 0:09:53.240 --> 0:09:56.960 Thus gravity would aid the flow of chemicals from one 0:09:57.280 --> 0:10:03.440 down to the next, and the chemical inside was liquid cyclohexane, 0:10:04.000 --> 0:10:08.880 which was pressurized, heated, and then blasted with compressed air 0:10:08.920 --> 0:10:14.240 as it traveled through the vessel. The bosses at Nipro 0:10:14.400 --> 0:10:17.040 had high hopes for this part of the plant, but 0:10:17.160 --> 0:10:22.040 so far its operation was proving troublesome. Nightpro worker Dennis 0:10:22.080 --> 0:10:25.400 Lawrence confided to his wife that there had been leaks. 0:10:26.280 --> 0:10:29.000 She didn't like the sound of that and worried for 0:10:29.040 --> 0:10:35.320 his safety. Cyclohexane is, after all, an incredibly flammable liquid, 0:10:35.679 --> 0:10:38.319 and when it escape since the open air, it tends 0:10:38.360 --> 0:10:44.280 to vaporize, forming a deadly combustible cloud. Dennis, a part 0:10:44.320 --> 0:10:48.440 time firefighter, had told his wife that if the cyclohexane 0:10:48.520 --> 0:10:52.240 tanks ever went up, there'd be no hope for anyone 0:10:52.280 --> 0:10:58.160 on the site. The management was alive to these risks 0:10:58.840 --> 0:11:03.160 arriving workers were frisked for cigarettes, matches, and lighters, and 0:11:03.200 --> 0:11:06.800 the technicians who worked closest to the chemicals wore special 0:11:06.880 --> 0:11:11.600 shoes to reduce the risk of creating a spark. That said, 0:11:11.840 --> 0:11:15.440 it was feared that even someone shifting too quickly in 0:11:15.480 --> 0:11:20.080 a fashionable nylon shirt could produce enough static charge to 0:11:20.200 --> 0:11:27.120 ignite an explosion. Naturally, when a six foot long crack 0:11:27.400 --> 0:11:30.480 was discovered in the fifth of the six steel reactor 0:11:30.559 --> 0:11:33.800 vessels in March nineteen seventy four, the whole array was 0:11:33.840 --> 0:11:38.280 immediately closed down and allowed to cool off. It was 0:11:38.400 --> 0:11:42.920 swiftly decided that vessel five should be removed, but that 0:11:43.040 --> 0:11:47.400 a costly shutdown could be avoided if the remaining vessels 0:11:47.400 --> 0:11:51.400 were pressed back into service connected with a temporary pipe 0:11:51.440 --> 0:11:55.000 where reactor five should have been. This pipe would simply 0:11:55.080 --> 0:11:59.320 have to be designed and built on site. No one 0:11:59.480 --> 0:12:04.320 in authority thought this a reckless or hazardous decision. They 0:12:04.320 --> 0:12:06.760 were said to regard it as no more than a 0:12:06.880 --> 0:12:13.120 routine plumbing job. But unfortunately we don't always know what 0:12:13.240 --> 0:12:17.200 we don't know. A mechanical engineer might have told them 0:12:17.240 --> 0:12:21.520 that fabricating such a pipe was fraught with difficulties. But 0:12:21.600 --> 0:12:25.520 amongst all the newspaper ads for cooks and clerks and 0:12:25.600 --> 0:12:29.360 draftsmen to join the workforce at Flicksborough, there was also 0:12:29.840 --> 0:12:35.120 a situation's vacant notice for a mechanical engineer, and that 0:12:35.200 --> 0:12:43.120 position had yet to be filled. Cautionary tales were returned shortly. 0:12:52.880 --> 0:12:56.920 The plans for the temporary pipe were supposedly sketched out 0:12:56.920 --> 0:13:00.640 in chalk on the floor of the factory's workshop, and 0:13:00.679 --> 0:13:04.960 if that sounds worryingly cavalier, you haven't heard the half 0:13:05.000 --> 0:13:11.520 of it. The existing pipes carrying pressurized and scalding hot 0:13:11.600 --> 0:13:17.199 liquid cyclohexane from vessel to vessel measured twenty eight inches across, 0:13:19.120 --> 0:13:22.720 but no spare piping of that size could be found 0:13:22.800 --> 0:13:27.880 laying around the niproplant. Instead of delaying the repair to 0:13:28.080 --> 0:13:32.679 order some the handy length of twenty inch pipe was substituted, 0:13:33.240 --> 0:13:39.720 roughly half the capacity of the original. Pushing the cyclohexane 0:13:39.760 --> 0:13:43.240 from a broad pipe into a thinner one creates issues, 0:13:43.760 --> 0:13:48.000 but some rough calculations reassured the nyprobosses that the smaller 0:13:48.040 --> 0:13:53.040 pipe could take the strain. But the original twenty eight 0:13:53.120 --> 0:13:57.880 inch pipes ran straight and by removing React of five. 0:13:58.520 --> 0:14:02.640 The NPRO workers now needed its smaller replacement to accommodate 0:14:02.679 --> 0:14:07.480 the considerable drop in height from vessel four to vessel six, 0:14:09.160 --> 0:14:12.559 So they gave the new pipe a dog leg by 0:14:12.600 --> 0:14:16.480 welding two joints along its length. So now the pipe 0:14:16.559 --> 0:14:20.800 ran straight, drop down, ran straight, a bit more, drop 0:14:20.880 --> 0:14:25.920 down again, and then joined REACT to vessels six. If 0:14:25.920 --> 0:14:30.120 they'd consulted the relevant safety standards, the men putting these 0:14:30.280 --> 0:14:32.960 kinks in the pipe would have known that their welds 0:14:33.160 --> 0:14:36.320 weren't up to the task. For when you force a 0:14:36.440 --> 0:14:40.320 moving liquid to change direction, it puts extra strain on 0:14:40.400 --> 0:14:45.720 the points where your pipe bends. This is all bad, 0:14:46.480 --> 0:14:51.720 but we're still not finished. The forces acting on the 0:14:51.760 --> 0:14:56.200 pipe's two bends would also cause a so called turning moment, 0:14:56.760 --> 0:15:01.640 causing the metal work to shift and twist in worrying ways. 0:15:01.640 --> 0:15:04.760 To counteract these forces, you need to secure the whole 0:15:04.960 --> 0:15:10.280 structure firmly. But as they hoisted their replacement pipe into place, 0:15:10.640 --> 0:15:15.200 the n PRO workers perched it on some flimsy scaffolding poles. 0:15:17.520 --> 0:15:21.160 Each original pipe was fitted with a bellows joint, essentially 0:15:21.160 --> 0:15:24.400 a rubber section that could expand and move to help 0:15:24.440 --> 0:15:27.240 absorb some of the forces acting on the rigid metalwork. 0:15:28.440 --> 0:15:31.600 No one thought to ask the manufacturer of these rubber 0:15:31.680 --> 0:15:35.080 joints if they were strong enough to absorb the forces 0:15:35.120 --> 0:15:39.600 at play in this jerry rigged pipework. If the replacement 0:15:39.760 --> 0:15:44.360 pipe began to buck and squirm, would these bellows joints 0:15:44.440 --> 0:15:50.440 just split apart. A mechanical engineer would immediately have spotted 0:15:50.520 --> 0:15:54.600 all these dangers, but there wasn't one on site. A 0:15:54.720 --> 0:15:58.320 chemical engineer around the npro operation. He was no doubt 0:15:58.440 --> 0:16:01.800 highly trained in his own field, but such training was 0:16:01.880 --> 0:16:05.240 narrow back then and wouldn't have included even the most 0:16:05.280 --> 0:16:11.840 basic mechanical concepts. It was an electrical engineer who oversaw 0:16:11.880 --> 0:16:15.240 the repair crew, and he wasn't educated to degree level. 0:16:15.440 --> 0:16:18.360 And the workmen themselves can hardly have been expected to 0:16:18.400 --> 0:16:22.120 spot the flaws in the design lots more, they were 0:16:22.160 --> 0:16:26.560 working at breakneck speed to complete the job. The crack 0:16:26.840 --> 0:16:30.480 in Vessel five had been spotted on March the twenty seventh, 0:16:30.880 --> 0:16:35.360 nineteen seventy four. Once it had been lifted clear, the design, 0:16:35.600 --> 0:16:39.760 building and installation of the replacement pipe had taken just 0:16:40.240 --> 0:16:45.640 thirty hours. There followed a rather half hearted attempt to 0:16:45.720 --> 0:16:50.840 test the dog legged assembly, gas rather than liquid, was 0:16:50.960 --> 0:16:55.360 pushed into the pipe that pressures approximating the normal operation 0:16:55.480 --> 0:16:58.720 of the system. The normal operation mine no thought was 0:16:58.800 --> 0:17:03.280 given to an abnormal spike in pressure. The system, of course, 0:17:03.360 --> 0:17:06.080 had a safety valve to release pressure if such a 0:17:06.159 --> 0:17:09.760 spike became too much and threatened to burst the vessels 0:17:09.800 --> 0:17:14.679 and original pipes. The replacement pipe was never tested to 0:17:14.720 --> 0:17:18.199 see if it would fail before this safety valve kicked in. 0:17:23.480 --> 0:17:28.760 So on April Fools Day nineteen seventy four, just five 0:17:28.920 --> 0:17:32.879 days after the vessel cracked, Flicksburgh was back at work 0:17:33.160 --> 0:17:39.840 oxidizing highly flammable cyclohexane. The management and board of Nipro 0:17:39.960 --> 0:17:43.879 were no doubt delighted by this performance. The outward flow 0:17:44.000 --> 0:17:47.800 of capro lactum could resume, and so too could the 0:17:47.840 --> 0:17:56.399 inward flow of money. Whenever you centralize production, when you 0:17:56.440 --> 0:18:00.040 put all your eggs in one basket, as Nipro had, 0:18:00.800 --> 0:18:06.000 you can realize considerable gains, but this always comes with risk. 0:18:06.960 --> 0:18:10.440 In a recent episode of the new podcast Business History, 0:18:10.960 --> 0:18:14.480 host Jacob Goldin looked at the success of the American 0:18:14.600 --> 0:18:19.920 Airline Southwest. Southwest began as a budget regional carrier out 0:18:19.960 --> 0:18:23.760 of Texas, but It's no Frill's approach soon made it 0:18:23.840 --> 0:18:28.000 a major national airline, able to turn a profit each 0:18:28.080 --> 0:18:33.600 and every year for forty seven years. That's an unrivaled 0:18:33.640 --> 0:18:37.520 feat in the aviation world. One of the secrets to 0:18:37.560 --> 0:18:42.960 this success was standardization. While other airlines might have mixed 0:18:42.960 --> 0:18:46.840 fleets of Boeing seven or seven jumbo jets or Airbus 0:18:46.920 --> 0:18:51.680 A three eighties or smaller short haul aircraft, Southwest has 0:18:51.720 --> 0:18:56.359 only really ever operated the Boeing seven three seven. This 0:18:56.520 --> 0:19:02.359 made life much easier and cheaper for Southwest. Pilots, flight attendants, 0:19:02.400 --> 0:19:05.200 and ground crew only had to learn the foibles of 0:19:05.240 --> 0:19:10.040 a single aircraft type. Thus training time was reduced. When 0:19:10.080 --> 0:19:14.359 staff went circor planes broke down, substitutions were easier and 0:19:14.520 --> 0:19:19.560 flights could continue. But in twenty eighteen came the first 0:19:19.600 --> 0:19:24.800 of two deadly crashes involving a Boeing seven three seven Max. 0:19:25.920 --> 0:19:30.320 Neither flight was operated by Southwest, but the authorities grounded 0:19:30.560 --> 0:19:34.960 all aircraft of that type. Seven three seven Maxes made 0:19:35.000 --> 0:19:38.760 up a third of Southwest's fleet, a crippling blow to 0:19:38.800 --> 0:19:43.080 its operation that lost it nearly a billion dollars in revenue. 0:19:45.359 --> 0:19:49.919 So what you gain in savings can be lost in resilience. 0:19:53.000 --> 0:19:56.800 At Flicksborough, night Pro had discovered the risks of building 0:19:56.840 --> 0:20:01.960 one mega factory to make caprolactum. A single cracked reactor 0:20:02.080 --> 0:20:07.320 vessel had halted production, disappointing important customers and further delaying 0:20:07.400 --> 0:20:10.200 the day when the troubled plant would turn a profit. 0:20:11.560 --> 0:20:14.920 It's the wonder then, that a solution was hurriedly decided 0:20:15.040 --> 0:20:19.680 upon and a temporary fix the bodged together dog leg 0:20:19.840 --> 0:20:25.280 pipe installed. In fact, Nipro was so desperate to get 0:20:25.280 --> 0:20:28.040 back to work that the cause of the crack in 0:20:28.160 --> 0:20:32.720 Vessel five wasn't investigated, nor were the other vessels checked 0:20:32.760 --> 0:20:38.760 for the signs of any impending failure. So throughout April 0:20:38.800 --> 0:20:43.600 and May of nineteen seventy four, cyclohexane was driven through 0:20:43.640 --> 0:20:49.040 the oxidizing system without mishap. The temporary fix the bent 0:20:49.200 --> 0:20:54.280 pipe knocked up on site became permanent. The temporary fix 0:20:54.440 --> 0:20:59.320 was folly, but not seeking to upgrade it compounded that error. 0:21:00.400 --> 0:21:04.760 Look around your home or car or workplace, you might 0:21:04.840 --> 0:21:09.000 well see a fixture or appliance somewhere that broke and 0:21:09.119 --> 0:21:13.879 was quickly repaired in a less than ideal perhaps afraid 0:21:14.000 --> 0:21:17.879 electrical cable was wrapped up with adhesive tape, or an 0:21:17.920 --> 0:21:22.320 important office IT system that fell over and was brought 0:21:22.400 --> 0:21:28.240 back online with a temporary workaround for every complex problem, 0:21:28.600 --> 0:21:32.480 wrote the essayist hl Mencan. There is an answer that 0:21:32.600 --> 0:21:39.119 is clear, simple and wrong. Mencan had a point. So 0:21:39.280 --> 0:21:43.400 called band aid solutions are tempting, but in the long 0:21:43.480 --> 0:21:46.040 run can prove to be more damaging than the problems 0:21:46.080 --> 0:21:49.400 they were meant to solve. Take the example of patching 0:21:49.480 --> 0:21:52.359 up an IT system. You may get everyone in the 0:21:52.400 --> 0:21:55.680 office back up on their computers, but a rushed line 0:21:55.680 --> 0:21:59.000 of code, like a rotten brick in a wall, can 0:21:59.040 --> 0:22:03.800 make the whole edifice less sturdy, and a cheap fix 0:22:04.040 --> 0:22:08.280 often proves expensive in the longer term. Bodgies and band 0:22:08.280 --> 0:22:12.640 aids make it harder to maintain an IT network, then 0:22:12.960 --> 0:22:18.399 weeks or months down the line, a catastrophic outage destroys 0:22:18.440 --> 0:22:22.520 your business. It's the same at home. If you're ever 0:22:22.720 --> 0:22:27.040 tempted to wrap her frayed electric cable with some tape, don't. 0:22:28.359 --> 0:22:33.000 Here's the advice of the London Fire Brigade. Always replace 0:22:33.359 --> 0:22:36.560 faulty leads. Is it worth risking your loved ones? And 0:22:36.600 --> 0:22:42.439 your home for the sake of a few pounds. That's 0:22:42.760 --> 0:22:46.880 exactly the kind of advice Loduena Becker's father, who might 0:22:46.880 --> 0:22:51.560 have endorsed teenage Loduena and her four brothers remember were 0:22:51.560 --> 0:22:54.840 settling down at home on June the first, nineteen seventy 0:22:54.880 --> 0:22:59.040 four to watch football on TV. Their dad, who was 0:22:59.080 --> 0:23:02.600 setting off for work at the night Pro plant, but 0:23:02.720 --> 0:23:07.480 paused because he noticed something amiss. Loduena doesn't recall what 0:23:07.560 --> 0:23:11.320 it was, a rattley door handle perhaps, or a loose 0:23:11.359 --> 0:23:15.600 paving stone, but she does remember her dad stopping immediately 0:23:15.680 --> 0:23:19.719 to put it right. He was always meticulous with keeping 0:23:19.760 --> 0:23:24.560 things in good working order, she said. The fix completed, 0:23:25.080 --> 0:23:30.000 who began his slightly delayed drive to Flicksborough and his 0:23:30.200 --> 0:23:37.040 plant for Who Becker's was Nightpro's general manager and the 0:23:37.160 --> 0:23:42.440 man who had green licked that dog legged pipe. Cautionary 0:23:42.480 --> 0:24:01.439 tales will be back in a moment. Dennis Lawrence was 0:24:01.480 --> 0:24:05.960 also on the afternoon shift at Nypro that sunny June Saturday. 0:24:06.960 --> 0:24:10.119 It was his term to supply refreshments, so he'd stop 0:24:10.200 --> 0:24:13.399 to pick up some tea and sugar. Dennis enjoyed the 0:24:13.480 --> 0:24:17.480 camaraderie of working in the plant's control room. At forty eight. 0:24:17.680 --> 0:24:20.600 He was older than the other lads, who called him Granddad, 0:24:21.119 --> 0:24:23.840 but he was a popular member of the team. Indeed, 0:24:23.880 --> 0:24:26.679 he was so avuncular that he had played Santa Claus 0:24:26.720 --> 0:24:30.800 at the staff party the previous Christmas. Dennis was in 0:24:30.840 --> 0:24:34.520 a particularly good mood that Summer's day. He had weathered 0:24:34.560 --> 0:24:38.919 some financial difficulties, but had just made the final repayment 0:24:39.040 --> 0:24:43.840 on his bankruptcy debts. He was in the clear at last. 0:24:45.040 --> 0:24:48.359 The control room was the brains of the plant and 0:24:48.440 --> 0:24:52.440 it never stopped making Capra. Lactam was a twenty four 0:24:52.480 --> 0:24:55.399 to seven business, but on a Saturday there was no 0:24:55.520 --> 0:24:59.840 need for nypros, draftsmen, clerks and cooks. Instead of three 0:24:59.920 --> 0:25:04.160 hundred workers, only around seventy people were working across the site. 0:25:04.520 --> 0:25:08.600 There were men in workshops, storehouses and laboratories dotted all 0:25:08.640 --> 0:25:12.919 over the estate. Thomas Cook's the security was on duty. 0:25:13.560 --> 0:25:16.600 A tanker truck driver had parked up at the factory too. 0:25:17.359 --> 0:25:21.399 A day or so earlier, several leaks had been detected 0:25:21.520 --> 0:25:26.480 in the five remaining reactor vessels. These leaks came and went, 0:25:27.119 --> 0:25:32.639 seeming to fix themselves. No inspection was made since the 0:25:32.720 --> 0:25:36.639 special spark proved tools needed to work so close to 0:25:36.720 --> 0:25:41.720 the flammable cyclohexane had been locked away and couldn't be accessed. 0:25:43.760 --> 0:25:46.800 In the control room, Dennis Lawrence was making the tea 0:25:47.000 --> 0:25:51.000 while his colleagues were diligently monitoring their dials and meters, 0:25:51.680 --> 0:25:54.800 keeping up the constant balancing act to maintain the right 0:25:54.880 --> 0:26:01.760 pressure and right temperature to convert cyclohexane into caprolactum. But 0:26:01.960 --> 0:26:04.919 things were much more relaxed in a workshop to the north. 0:26:05.640 --> 0:26:09.440 Instrument technician John Irvin hadn't had much to do since 0:26:09.560 --> 0:26:13.919 clocking on at three five PM was fast approaching, so 0:26:14.119 --> 0:26:16.919 he thought he'd start on his packed lunch of sandwiches 0:26:17.240 --> 0:26:21.639 before anyone could call to report a faulty gauge. It 0:26:21.760 --> 0:26:26.360 made scant progress when a noise boomed across the plant, 0:26:27.760 --> 0:26:32.040 followed by a whoosh like the approach of an express train. 0:26:33.080 --> 0:26:36.440 Through the workshop window, John could see men running into 0:26:36.480 --> 0:26:39.840 the control room while others left it with equal urgency. 0:26:41.000 --> 0:26:44.480 The technician put down his sandwich and made for the 0:26:44.560 --> 0:26:49.720 door to join those fleeing. The first boom John had 0:26:49.800 --> 0:26:53.679 heard was the temporary pipe between reactive vessels four and 0:26:53.960 --> 0:27:01.720 six breaking open. The woosh was pop cyclohexane, escaping into 0:27:01.760 --> 0:27:08.000 the air and forming a vast flammable cloud drifting across 0:27:08.040 --> 0:27:11.480 the chemical works. It was only a matter of time 0:27:11.600 --> 0:27:17.560 before cloud encountered a spark or flame. You see the 0:27:17.680 --> 0:27:22.840 explosion before you hear it, said John, A tsunami of 0:27:22.880 --> 0:27:28.560 flame coming towards me at great speed. That's when I screamed, 0:27:30.400 --> 0:27:33.359 and then there was a tremendous gust of wind, and 0:27:33.400 --> 0:27:36.800 I remember being lifted off the ground and then something 0:27:36.880 --> 0:27:43.840 hitting me on the head. When John regained consciousness, the 0:27:43.920 --> 0:27:48.840 workshop had collapsed on him. The ceiling was down, the 0:27:48.880 --> 0:27:54.159 walls punched in, windows shattered, and the contents of the 0:27:54.240 --> 0:28:01.080 room flung around. Fortunately, some sturdy workbenches had withstood the 0:28:01.119 --> 0:28:05.239 blast and sheltered the young technician from being crushed. They 0:28:05.280 --> 0:28:09.000 also offered him an escape route, a tunnel to exit 0:28:09.040 --> 0:28:15.440 the building. Thus began and a hellish journey. Every one 0:28:15.600 --> 0:28:20.879 of John's fingers had been broken, but on hands and 0:28:21.040 --> 0:28:27.040 lacerated knees, he crossed the glass and sharp rubble. I 0:28:27.160 --> 0:28:31.960 crawled and I was screaming, but I couldn't even hear 0:28:32.080 --> 0:28:39.520 my own screams. The blast had deafened John. That wasn't 0:28:39.560 --> 0:28:44.080 his most urgent problem, though, because the explosion also left 0:28:44.160 --> 0:28:49.640 him blinded. He scrabbled madly from room to room, eventually 0:28:49.680 --> 0:28:54.000 finding himself outside. He knew the layout of the plant, 0:28:54.440 --> 0:28:59.880 but now stumbled sightless through an unfamiliar landscape, repeatedly crashing 0:28:59.920 --> 0:29:06.320 into unexpected obstacles. Disoriented, John most feared plunging into an 0:29:06.400 --> 0:29:12.000 acid storage pit he knew was somewhere along his route. Miraculously, 0:29:12.480 --> 0:29:16.680 he negotiated the catwalk over the acid pool without tottering in. 0:29:17.960 --> 0:29:23.160 At that point, I got hopelessly lost, said John. I 0:29:23.200 --> 0:29:26.080 stood up a few times and waved my hands around 0:29:26.080 --> 0:29:31.960 and shouted for help. No one answered his cord. Blinded 0:29:33.080 --> 0:29:38.760 and surrounded by raging fires, a badly wounded technician slumped 0:29:39.280 --> 0:29:44.360 down in the rubble, defeated. I just thought I was 0:29:44.360 --> 0:29:54.280 going to die. John then felt a hand on his shoulder. 0:29:55.880 --> 0:30:00.520 On seeing the explosion, two off duty night pro workers 0:30:00.640 --> 0:30:05.040 had rushed to the plant, using a broken down door 0:30:05.080 --> 0:30:10.040 as a stretcher, and carried John to safety. A volunteer 0:30:10.080 --> 0:30:14.200 ambulance crew had also hurried the disaster, and without anesthetic, 0:30:14.560 --> 0:30:17.360 began to stitch up the worst of the many wounds 0:30:17.400 --> 0:30:21.120 across John's face. They managed to clean me up as 0:30:21.160 --> 0:30:25.320 best they could, said John, who assumed it was just 0:30:25.440 --> 0:30:28.480 the blood from these cuts that was obscuring his vision. 0:30:29.880 --> 0:30:35.640 His injuries would, however, prove to be life changing. Twenty 0:30:35.680 --> 0:30:44.240 two year old John Irvin would never see again. Five 0:30:44.320 --> 0:30:50.400 miles away, the family of Dennis Lawrence gazed dumbfounded towards 0:30:50.400 --> 0:30:56.520 the explosion. Had nypro really gone up? People were phoning 0:30:56.600 --> 0:31:01.240 up to say, that's exactly what had happened. Dennis's daughter 0:31:01.400 --> 0:31:07.160 was sure he'd be fine, But missus Lawrence had no illusions. 0:31:08.280 --> 0:31:14.400 Your dad isn't coming back, she said, calm as silence 0:31:14.560 --> 0:31:22.120 descended on the family home. She was right, and Dennis 0:31:22.320 --> 0:31:27.240 wasn't the only fatality. Thomas Crooks, the security guard, was dead. 0:31:28.360 --> 0:31:34.240 The visiting tanker driver dead too. Across the plant, twenty 0:31:34.400 --> 0:31:40.040 eight people had perished. The toll was heaviest in the 0:31:40.040 --> 0:31:44.800 control room where Dennis had worked. There were eighteen people 0:31:44.920 --> 0:31:49.640 in there. None of them survived, and lost with them 0:31:49.760 --> 0:31:53.080 were all the records of what happened leading up to 0:31:53.160 --> 0:31:59.680 the blast. It was estimated that the cyclo hexaane ignited 0:31:59.760 --> 0:32:04.280 with the force of around thirty tons of TNT easily 0:32:04.320 --> 0:32:09.800 the biggest peacetime explosion in British history. It's a miracle then, 0:32:10.120 --> 0:32:15.520 that no one beyond the factory goes was killed. When 0:32:15.560 --> 0:32:19.720 farmer Gordon Atkinson arrived home close to the plant, he 0:32:19.800 --> 0:32:25.160 found his mother shaken, but thankfully alive. It was like 0:32:25.240 --> 0:32:30.000 a ghost village, he said. There were curtains blowing out 0:32:30.000 --> 0:32:36.080 of broken windows, roofs lifted and set back wrong, fire 0:32:36.360 --> 0:32:40.800 raged on at night. Pro for ten full days, and 0:32:41.000 --> 0:32:45.400 specialist coal mine rescue teams were drafted in to recover 0:32:45.480 --> 0:32:50.360 the buried dead. Factory workers helped in this grim task, 0:32:50.960 --> 0:32:53.280 but were sent away for a cup of tea whenever 0:32:53.320 --> 0:32:58.040 the corpse of a colleague was uncovered. Nobody got counseling 0:32:58.040 --> 0:33:02.400 in those days, said one NCRO employee. He just had 0:33:02.400 --> 0:33:04.600 to grin and bear it and get on, and that's 0:33:04.600 --> 0:33:14.240