FLIXBOROUGH 2007: A one-day symposium at UCL, London: 13th April 2007

Thirty-three years after the Flixborough disaster, speculation about its cause still rumbles on. For the first time, advocates of alternative causation theories will appear together at a one-day symposium in London on 13 April 2007.

The official Court of Inquiry concluded that an inappropriate temporary by-pass pipe was the sole cause of the explosion in an otherwise “well constructed and designed” plant. The symposium will bring together surviving forensic investigators to discuss the evidence from the Court of Inquiry and previously unavailable material from the National Archives just released to the public.

Dr. John Cox, one of the engineers involved in the accident investigation in 1974-1975 said: “The material just released by National Archives is consistent with eye-witness accounts, the forensic studies and a reconstructed cine-film of the fires taken within 2 minutes of the explosion. What’s more, it supports the main alternative to the disputed explanation endorsed by the Court.”

This is the first time alternative theories will have received adversarial scrutiny at the same event. The symposium will review the evidence in the light of additional material that has become available (in the National Archives and from private sources) and will take place in the presence of key eyewitnesses and forensic investigators from 1974-75. Presentations of the findings of the Court of Inquiry and an alternative explanation from 1974-75 and a more recent hypothesis will be followed by a Panel discussion. A CD recording all significant forensic reports and studies and transcripts of the Public Inquiry will be provided to early registrants (email to Flixborough2007@aol.com for details).

For a full programme and registration details, email to Flixborough2007@aol.com