Event
- Event ID
- 1008
- Quality
- Description
- A tanker-tractor carrying liquid hydrogen overturned and lost vacuum insulation. The hydrogen boiled and vented, but there was no ignition.
The potential for fire or explosion, however, led to precautions that did cause considerable disruption: the interstate highway where the accident occurred was closed and nearby homes and businesses were evacuated. - Event Initiating system
- Classification of the physical effects
- Unignited Hydrogen Release
- Nature of the consequences
- Leak No Ignition (No additional details provided)
- Macro-region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Date
- Main component involved?
- Cryogenic Insulation Shell
- How was it involved?
- Rupture
- Initiating cause
- Impact, Rollover, Crash
- Root causes
- Root CAUSE analysis
- INITIATING cause was a traffic accident. In absence of information on drivers and driver behaviours, the ROOT CAUSE can be attributed generically to a human error (wrong maneuvre)
Facility
- Application
- Hydrogen Transport And Distribution
- Sub-application
- LH2 tanker
- Hydrogen supply chain stage
- Hydrogen Transport (No additional details provided)
- All components affected
- vacuum thermal insulation
- Location type
- Open
- Operational condition
- Pre-event occurrences
- The sources do no specify if the tanker was full. It can be nevertheless understood from the statement that the hydrogen boiled off and was release that the tanker was still liquid hydrogen to be delivered to a customer (on their return travel, the LH2 tankers contain normally only could gaseous hydrogen).
Emergency & Consequences
- Number of injured persons
- 0
- Number of fatalities
- 0
- Post-event summary
- no consequence, but local evacuation
Event Nature
- Release type
- gas
- Involved substances (% vol)
- H2 100%
- Released amount
- 3800
- Actual pressure (MPa)
- 1
- Design pressure (MPa)
- 1
- Presumed ignition source
- No ignition
References
- Reference & weblink
Ringland, Safety Issues for Hydrogen Powered Vehicle, SANDIA REPORTSAND94-8226<br />
https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/10136126 <br />
(accessed October 2025)Incident I-1987090240 of the US Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration PHMSA: <br />
https://portal.phmsa.dot.gov/analytics/saw.dll?Portalpages&PortalPath=%… />
(accessed September 2024)
JRC assessment
- Sources categories
- Scientific article
