Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) - Report of ...

crosscut 139. At this point, breaker posts would need to be set and the conveyor belt and power
center would need to be moved outby before pillar recovery between the Nos. 1 and 3 entries
could resume. Shortly after 9:00 p.m., Benny Allred gave his notebook and PED light to
Erickson. Erickson gave his preshift report to Benny Allred to record in the examination book.
Benny Allred asked Ward to help Erickson that night, if needed. Anderson, Benny Allred, and
Powell left the section. Before leaving the mine, Anderson and Benny Allred met with outby
mine examiners Brent Hardee, Tim Curtis, and Brian Pritt. Anderson provided them with a list
of tasks and Benny Allred asked them to retrieve his Self-Contained Self-Rescuer (SCSR) from
the section.
At approximately 11:30 p.m., Ward finished repairing the scoop and started helping Phillips
move the first aid trailer and rock dusting machine outby. Curtis drove to the section and
retrieved Benny Allred’s SCSR before helping Hardee and Pritt clean out an area for storing
conveyor belt structure at Main West crosscut 18. At 11:43 p.m., Richard Maxwell (material
man) arrived at the mine and started making repairs to his diesel-powered supply tractor.
Maxwell drove the tractor into the mine at 1:33 a.m., August 6, 2007, to check supplies on the
section.
By 2:00 a.m., Ward and other section crew members had started setting breaker posts inby
crosscut 139. Harper had finished work on the 3 rd North charging station, but his truck would
not start and he called Ward for assistance. Ward checked with Erickson to see if he could leave
the section to help Harper. Erickson agreed, but told Ward that he needed to finish setting the
breaker posts before leaving.
Hardee, Curtis, and Pritt completed cleaning the area at Main West crosscut 18 and drove their
pick-up trucks outside, exiting the mine at 2:09 a.m. While on the surface, they unloaded
material gathered from the work site. Pritt and Curtis reentered the Crandall Canyon Mine in a
pick-up truck at 2:21 a.m., as Hardee prepared to conduct preshift examinations in the South
Crandall Canyon Mine.
At approximately 2:30 a.m., Maxwell arrived at crosscut 133 of the South Barrier section and
checked section supplies. No supplies were needed. He turned his tractor around and started
driving back outby. At 2:36 a.m., Hardee entered the South Crandall Canyon Mine to conduct
examinations. By 2:45 a.m., Ward had finished setting breaker posts. He called Harper to tell
him he was on his way and left the section.
At 2:48 a.m., as the section crew continued mining the barrier pillar near crosscut 139, a
catastrophic coal outburst accident initiated near the pillar line in the South Barrier section and,
within seconds, pillar failures propagated outby to approximately crosscut 119. Coal was
violently expelled into the entries where Kerry Allred, Don Erickson, Jose Luis Hernandez,
Juan Carlos Payan, Brandon Phillips, and Manuel Sanchez were working. All approaches to the
section were blocked, entrapping the six miners. The barrier pillars to the north and south of the
South Barrier section also failed, inundating the entrapped miners’ work area with lethally
oxygen-deficient air from the adjacent sealed area(s).
The resulting magnitude 3.9 mining-induced seismic event shook the mine office, located on the
surface three miles from the section, where it was felt by Leland Lobato and Mark Toomer,
atmospheric monitoring system (AMS) operators. AMS alarms reported communication failure
from sensors throughout the South Barrier section and the Nos. 6 and 7 conveyor belts stopped.
Air displaced by the ground failure rushed outby in a dust cloud that destroyed or damaged
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