9 replies to this topic

[Blast Happy Fool]

Kimbolton Fireworks have ben fined £18,000 as a result of the accident at Wicksteed Park in Kettering.

Cambridge-based Kimbolton Fireworks admitted discharging fireworks unsafely at the display in November 2005. The racking system for the fireworks was inadequate and toppled over, propelling one straight towards the 5,000-strong crowd, the court heard.

http://news.bbc.co.u...ire/6300047.stm

Edited by Blast Happy Fool, 26 January 2007 - 07:20 PM.

[sizzle]

Ouch, that's not good. Does anyone know exactly what happened? Kimbolton never stated what went wrong in the end did they, although looking at the BBC site it seems a rack must have fallen over?

[pyrotrev]

And rumour has it that the safety distance was 150m+..... It's a shame in some ways if the details don't come out, because although none of us like to admit to our mistakes, in a business like this where safety is paramount, we can all learn from each other when things go wrong.

Edited by pyrotrev, 26 January 2007 - 09:05 PM.

[pyrotrev]

The guys from KF have sent out details of what went wrong, as they rightly feel it will be of use for all to know, in the hope that it can be avoided in future (full marks to them for that). The accident was caused by a 6" shell in racked mortars prematurely exploding which trashed the rack and scattered the remaining tubes, one of which was ignited and ended up pointing towards the audience (which was 172m away - a decent safety distance in anyone's book). Contrary to rumour the rack did not topple over, since it was securely staked. The shell fired towards the audience and exploded just short of the crowd, injuring several spectators. The important lesson to be learnt from this is that "normal" close packed mortars in wooden racks are not necessarily safe and that extra measures need to be taken: I may well write some more on this when I've done some more testing.

[karlfoxman]

Having fired for them I can tell you they always follow regs, I have used and assembled the racks they use and they are a very good design. It seems this is one of those accidents that would never happen again, glad they let us all know what had happened.

[pyrotrev]

I can only assume that the shell causing the initial problem actually detonated rather than simply bursting in the tube. I can't remember if I've mentioned this before, but I had a 3" silver coconut shell do this a couple of years ago, and the results were devastating. The tube it was in was reduced to glass fibre fluff, and the adjacent tubes were crushed abd ripped like they'd had an argument with a bulldozer, and scattered a good 10m. Even the metal stake securing the rack got well bent!. Helluva bang though .When I tried to reproduce the effect to test a stronger rack design, the same shell just flowerpotted , so it's obviously a marginal thing.

[BrightStar]

The public quotes in the news at the time suggested that 'a catherine wheel broke loose and rolled toward the crowd and exploded'. Of course this was unlikely, and a 6" shell with spolette and rising comets bowling along the ground towards the crowd would look much the same, with a much more scary conclusion. There must be at least some safety work to be done here. Are 'blowout panels' as advocated by pyrogear.net the way forward?

Pyrotrev, are you able to post the full text of the Kimbolton memo please? It would be valuable for future reference.

Edited by BrightStar, 10 February 2007 - 09:34 PM.

[pyrotrev]

I'll just check with them if it's OK to post the whole statement as is - only polite to do so, they're straight guys. The serious aspect of this affair is that the accident happened and the HSE found them guilty and fined them for working in a manner which would be considered normal by most display operators in the UK, so there's likely to need to be some changes. It's ironic that they've been fined for using equipment that is portrayed in the pictures in the HSE's own publication "Working Together On Firework Displays", maybe Ron Lancaster has a point when he quotes the Bible in his book "woe to you teachers of the law, you load men down with intolerable burdens yet will not lift one finger to help them". I will second Karl's opinion in thatI've always found KF to be probably the most safety conscious and professional of all the companies I deal with.

[Mortartube]

When I was in the trade, many operators would not rack up tubes over 4" precisely because of this eventuality. I'm not saying that it won't happen with 4" or under shells, but they travel less of a distance generally and with the safety distances used in this instance, they would have probably not got near enough to the crowd to cause injuries.

I'm sure that at one time, even Kimbolton didn't recommend racking up larger tubes, but the paperwork for that is long gone.

The only sure way to stop this with larger shells is to stake the tubes individually and well spaced from each other so the explosion from one doesn't disturb the others.

[pyrotrev]

I was "brought up" with much the same ethos, except it was up to 5". There is obviously a point as the calibre gets bigger where any normal tube won't be able to contain the explosion in the event of a shell malfunction.