Investigators sought arrest warrants Monday for five people in connection with a deadly explosion at the shipyard of local shipbuilder STX Offshore & Shipbuilding in August that claimed the lives of four workers.
Coast Guard investigators requested the warrants for the five — four of them STX workers and the other the head of a subcontractor. The STX workers were accused of failing to take enough safety measures and the subcontractor chief was accused of forging employment documents for the four ill-fated workers.
The explosion occurred while workers were painting inside a tank of a product carrier on August 20.
Flammable gas from spray paint flew into a lamp lacking explosion-proof measures, investigators have ascertained.
and if the four workers had followed procedure, the would have been sacked, and blacked, if the contractor had delayed because of the procedure, STX would have thrown him out of the yard, never to return.