Capetown Castle was propelled by two Harland & Wolff-Burmiester & Wain, 14,000 bhp, double acting exhaust piston engines; each engine having ten cylinders 660 mm bore by 1500 mm stroke.
During the early hours of Monday 17th October 1960, Capetown Castle was manoeuvring into the harbour at Las Palmas. The bridge had rung down stop at 0448 hours. A few seconds later an explosion occurred, and a sheet of flame swept through the engine room killing the Chief Engineer, the First Engineer, the Senior Second and Junior Second Engineers and a Greaser. The subsequent enquiry revealed that a faulty air start valve had caused the explosion. Captain Bylas requested medical assistance from Las Palmas, and also contacted RMS Windsor Castle who was off Las Palmas by VHF radio, requsting that they send as many engineers as they could spare, and also their Medical Officer and Nursing Sister.
The formal investigation established that the explosion ignited in the start air line of the port main engine. For such an explosion to occurr there must have been a quantity of oil in combination with air and a heat source to detinate the explosion. The team of expert witnesses agreed that the explosion was ignited by the presence of half a tea cup full of oil, and that this oil came from the hydraulic pump used to clear the drain lines. The start air lines were coated with a film of oil carried over from the compressors, but it was agreed that this did not cause the initial explosion but was contributory to the esculation of the incident.
They used a hydraulic pump to clear the starting air pipe drain lines, not oxygen.
The oil used to clear the drain line got into the starting air pipe and an air start valve jammed open upon starting the engine.
The flash back ignited the oil and caused the explosion. This type of engine did not have the automatic isolation valve that drains the pipe before the air start valve.Hence the air start line was pressurised all the way to the air start valve.

Brian

 
Peter Miller
Member

Registered: September 2004
Posts: 3
Thu, 5 April 07 21:24
Capetown Castle immobilized by ER explosion at LAS palmas.Rothesay Castle alongside delivering power. Pendennis Castle astern on regular mailship call.
I served with the Union Castle Line in the sixties and I remember the cause was a leaking air start valve which caused an explosion in an air reservoir which had excessive oil contamination from air compressors. Unlucky, the air contained the right mix for the explosion. After the explosion Union Castle were pedantic about air filtration and regular draining of all air reservoirs

I served with the Union Castle Line in the sixties and I remember the cause was a leaking air start valve which caused an explosion in an air reservoir which had excessive oil contamination from air compressors. Unlucky, the air contained the right mix for the explosion. After the explosion Union Castle were pedantic about air filtration and regular draining of all air reservoirs