Event
- Event ID
- 872
- Quality
- Description
While driving on a highway, the driver of a compressed hydrogen tube trailers lost control of the vehicle, which rolled on a side and stopped at the berm.
The trailer was loaded with 5000 m3 of hydrogen (approximately 450 kg), but the roll-over and the impact with the ground did not cause any release of hydrogen.- Event Initiating system
- Classification of the physical effects
- No Hydrogen Release
- Nature of the consequences
- Macro-region
- Europe
- Country
- Germany
- Date
- Component involved
- CGH2 tube (trailer)
- Failure mode
- damage, no release
- Initiating cause
- impact, rollover, crash
- Root CAUSE analysis
INITIATING CAUSE was a traffic accident.
In absence of information on driver, the ROOT CAUSE is attributed generically to a human error (wrong manoeuvre). According to one of the sources, the driver was drinking coffee when he lost vehicle control.- Root causes
- Date entry in HIAD
- 01/11/2025
Facility
- Application
- Hydrogen transport and distribution
- Sub-application
- CGH2 tube trailer
- Hydrogen supply chain stage
- All components affected
trailer
- Process temperature range [C]
- ambient temperature (-50°C to +50°C)
- Process pressure range [MPa]
- high pressure (above 50 MPa)
- Location type
- Open
- Location
- highway or similar
- Operational condition
Emergency & Consequences
- Number of fatalities
- 0
- Number of injured persons
- 1
- Post-event summary
Only one of the 2 sources report light injuries and a visit to the hospital.
- Emergency action
Police stopped the highway traffic in one direction for several hours, causing a queue up to 7 km. A special company 'pumped out' the hydrogen from trailers (it is unclear how this operation was performed. Considering the lack of details of the sources, it could have as well consisted in simple controlled release in the environment).
Lesson Learnt
- Lesson Learnt
This is a near miss. Despite the roll over, no damage was caused to pressurised cylinders or to related components. The fact that the vehicle experienced the impact with the ground on one side, helped to maintain confinement, not affecting the piping system.
In-depth data
- Release type
- no release
- Involved substances (% vol)
- n.a.
- Released amount (kg)
- 0
- Release temperature [°C]
- 25
- Release pressure [MPa]
- 50
- Probable IGNITION SOURCE
References
- Sources categories
- News
- Reference & weblink
Rheinische Post news of 4 September
https://rp-online.de/nrw/staedte/leverkusen/mit-wasserstoff-beladener-l…
(accessed Novemebr 2025)DVZ of 4 September
https://www.dvz.de/rubriken/detail/news/gefahrguttransporter-kippt-um.h…
(accessed Novemebr 2025)