Feds investigating as Pa. producer recalls thousands of air packs used in nation’s coal mines

Pa. firm recalls thousands of coal mine air packs

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A belt-worn breathing device that coal miners count on to save their lives during fires, explosions and entrapments was voluntarily recalled Friday because of a problem with the oxygen starter.

CSE Corp. of Monroeville, Pa., also said it had suspended production of the SR-100, the most popular self-contained self-rescuer unit in U.S. coal mines, while it investigates the problem.

CSE said it is recalling the entire production lot of more than 4,000 units sold to mining companies operating in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, Alabama, Ohio, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico. However, it believes the problem may affect less than 1 percent of those units.

CSE identified the problem with the starting mechanism during a routine quality control test Feb. 17, Chief Executive Officer Scott Shearer said in a prepared statement. The company notified the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, both of which are also now investigating.

The agencies say the devices may not provide as much oxygen as they should.

The SR-100 is not an oxygen canister; it’s a belt-worn pack about the size of three cake-mix boxes, weighing about 6 pounds. It contains chemicals that help recycle exhaled breath, chemically scrubbing the carbon dioxide and replenishing it with oxygen.

It’s designed to provide a miner with about an hour of breathable air — theoretically, enough time to seek refuge or escape.

CSE has about 60 percent of the U.S. market for air packs, which grew sharply when regulators ordered underground coal mines to stockpile them after a series of deadly accidents in 2006.

One of those was the Jan. 2 explosion and prolonged entrapment at West Virginia’s Sago Mine, which killed 12 men. The only man to survive more than 40 hours in a poisonous atmosphere, Randal McCloy Jr., later insisted the miners could not get their SR-100s to work.

The same SR-100 air packs also were used during a fatal fire at the Aracoma Alma No. 1 Mine that same month, and several months later after an explosion at Kentucky’s Darby No. 1 Mine.

On the Net:

CSE Corp: www.csecorporation.com/

MSHA: www.msha.gov/