What went wrong?
The National Transportation Safety Board said its investigation of three powerful gas transmission line explosions (near Sissonville, WV, Palm City, Florida, and San Bruno, California) exposed deficiencies with the pipeline companies' programs for ensuring their pipelines were safe and reliable.
1. Gas companies did not do inspections or tests to find pipeline weaknesses.
2. There was no automatic or remotely controlled shut off valves or a shut off valve failed to close.
3. There was a lack of coordination between federal-to-state and state-to-state inspectors.
4. Some states have more pre-1970s pipelines than others so have higher risk and therefore need more expert inspectors and more thorough inspection methods.
