ABSTRACT
Just before five o'clock in the afternoon of the first Saturday in June 1974 an explosion at the Nypro plant at Flixborough, Humberside, killed 28 people and injured about 40. The plant, jointly owned by Dutch State Mines and the National Coal Board, produced over 50 000 tonnes a year of caprolactam for use in the manufacture of nylon. In the plant, cyclohexane was heated under pressure in six reactors, each of which was about 10m high and 3m in diameter. The reactors were usually connected in series but, at the time of the explosion, number five was out of commission; on 30 March it had been lifted off its platform by a crane and placed nearby. The gap between reactor four and reactor six was about 6m and the outlet from reactor four was 0.35m higher than the inlet to reactor six.
