Event
- Event ID
- 389
- Quality
- Description
A leak occurred at the fill valve of a LH2 vessel. With the tank pressure at about 100 psi a leak was noticed. The area was cleared and the vessel was emptied by remote controls.
- Event Initiating system
- Classification of the physical effects
- Unignited Hydrogen Release
- Nature of the consequences
- leak no ignition
- Macro-region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Date
- -
- Component involved
- valve (generic)
- Failure mode
- leak, no ignition
- Initiating cause
- material degradation (generic)
- Root CAUSE analysis
The leak was caused by valve stem packing failure. Nothing is known on the ROOT CAUSE.
- Root causes
- Unknown
- Date entry in HIAD
- 01/11/2025
Facility
- Application
- Non-road vehicles
- Sub-application
- Aerospace
- Hydrogen supply chain stage
- All components affected
LH2 tank, valve
- Process temperature range [C]
- cryogenic temperature (below -50°C)
- Process pressure range [MPa]
- low to medium pressure (below 2 MPa)
- Location type
- Unknown
- Location
- industrial area
- Operational condition
- UNKNOWN
Emergency & Consequences
- Number of fatalities
- 0
- Number of injured persons
- 0
- Property loss (onsite)
- 0
- Post-event summary
Only loss was the tank content, quantity not reported.
- Emergency action
The system was borught in a safe condition by venting tank content through a remote operation. How the leak was ' noticed' was not reported.
In-depth data
- Release type
- gas
- Involved substances (% vol)
- H2 100%
- Probable IGNITION SOURCE
References
- Sources categories
- ORDIN
- Reference & weblink
Mishap no 48 in
P. L. Ordin, Review of hydrogen accidents and incidents in NASA operations, 1974, NASA TM X-71565
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19740020344Hankinson and Lowesmith, Qualitative Risk Assessment of Hydrogen Liquefaction, Storage and Transportation, FCH JU project IDEALHY, Deliverable 3.10 (2013)
confidential
(accessed October 2025)Lowesmith et al., Safety issues of the liquefaction, storage and transportation of liquid hydrogen: An analysis of incidents and HAZIDS, Int. J. Hydrogen energy (2014) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2014.08.002
