Since the mid-1980s, Chemring Countermeasures has manufactured decoy flares which British and NATO military aircraft deploy when targeted by missiles. Swindon Magistrates Court heard on Thursday that inadequate staff training, supervision, and risk assessments at the Salisbury site, as well as failures to comply with its own health and safety policies, created circumstances that caused a deadly blast . Since then, a new manager has taken charge, replaced the safety and operations directors, and carried out major changes to how the company handles explosive material.
The business pleaded guilty to failing to discharge its general health, safety and welfare duty to two employees. WHAT HAPPENED At 4.49pm in building 206 on August 10, 2018, Piotr Zukowski was nearing the end of his shift after the production of a third batch of a composite of magnesium, Teflon and Viton, a chemical which ignites flares.
Deposits of up to 5kg of MTV had built up inside the PressoFiltro mixing bowl during its use and, when he leaned his upper torso into the machine to replace the filter cloth, the solvent composition ignited due to metal-on-metal contact between his partly-aluminium dustpan and the material. The blast sent the 29-year-old from Southampton outside the room and caused a pile of waste MTV stored in cleaning buckets in the corridor to ignite, which severely burned then-26-year-old Jake West from Pewsey. WHAT WENT WRONG Health and Safety Executive lead prosecutor Alan Hughes said that b.
