Defective air packs

Air packs produced by CSE Corp. didn’t work properly during the Sago, WV mine disaster, contributing to the deaths of 12 miners there, according to Randal McCloy, the sole survivor, who recounted the experience in a letter to the victims’ families yesterday, the Associated Press reported.

McCloy said that at least four of the self-contained self-rescue devices, or SCSRs, which are intended to give miners an hour’s worth of oxygen while they escape or find a pocket of clean air, failed to work, forcing the miners to share the working packs.

At least two miners who escaped the blast said their air packs weren’t working either. “There’s going to have to be some design changes for them,” one of them told the AP.

CSE didn’t comment on the packs yesterday but the International Coal Group said that “federal investigators did not note any defective SCSRs and all appeared to be in working order.”

The Bush administration is reviewing air packs and other safety equipment used in the mines.