A spool-piece was installed in a line, upstream of a flow orifice. For reasons unknown, the wall thickness of the spool piece was never checked in over two years.

One sunny day the spool-piece broke and twelve men lost their lives.

Lessons learned:

1. Make sure spool-pieces are in the right places (downstream of orifices)
2. Make sure that statutory inspections are carried out.
3. You can pay a helluva price for failing to do so!

Thanks to Marius Grobler for contributing this article.