It is the same mine where work has been stopped due to a recent fire, in which incident all workers were evacuated safely.

The US Mine Safety and Health Administration said that general inside laborer William Mock was working at the Consol Energy operation in Monongalia County on September 13 when a piece of mine roof weighing an estimated 3000 pounds and measuring 11 feet long, 5ft wide and ranging in thickness from 4 to 11 inches, fell and stuck him.

“Mock and [fellow general inside laborer] Doug Ice Jr were attempting to increase the vertical clearance between the track and the trolley wire near the no 117 block on the main north track haulage,” MSHA investigators said of the incident in its just-released final report.

“Mock and Ice were removing a roof bolt and wooden plank, which were initially installed as permanent roof supports when the area was mined.”

Initial attempts to remove the rock from Mock were unsuccessful. A jack and come-along hoist were used to lift the rock and free the victim.

No vital signs were detected by emergency personnel and Mock was pronounced dead on arrival at a local hospital.

In its discussion of the incident, MSHA investigators said Blacksville had a mining practice that involved insulating immediate mine roof rock by leaving “head coal” at least four inches thick.

“In the area near the accident site, when mined originally, the head coal was found to be approximately 10 inches thick but due to weathering, most of the head coal had sloughed away, leaving the roof rock exposed,” officials said.

“To complete the mining cycle, additional height was obtained in the track entry by blasting the floor … prior to blasting, truss bolts on five-foot spacing were installed throughout the area.

“Because of the long-term sloughing of head coal, the truss bolts installed initially became ineffective and provided little to no support.

“Consequently, most of the truss bolts had been removed.”

Also in its probe, MSHA reviewed training records for both Mock and fellow miner Ice, who were the only miners working in the area at the time of the fall.

While the requisite annual refresher training was current for both, the agency’s review revealed the mine operator did not provide Ice with task training for the task of removing permanent roof support.

The review also revealed that the mine operator was unable to provide a record of task training for Mock.

Citations for both violations were issued to Blacksville, though the latter was non-contributory to the accident.

MSHA investigators concluded operator shortfalls were to blame for the accident.

“[It] was caused by the failure to install additional support before load-bearing primary roof support was removed; management’s failure to assure persons removing roof support were located in a safe position; management’s failure to provide management personnel to supervise the removal of roof support; management’s failure to examine the roof conditions before permanent support was removed; and management’s failure to provide task training instructing miners in the safe working procedures of removing permanent roof support and the safety and health aspects of the task,” officials said.

To rectify the issues, the agency ordered the development of written safe work instructions, including training of specific policies and procedures to be followed while completing the task that led to the occurrence of the accident as well as assurance that a management person would be present during roof support removal.

Blacksville also developed written instructions for specific policies and procedures by mine management personnel and examiners when roof support removal was being done and the installation of temporary supports in order to remove permanent roof supports.

MSHA issued a total of seven 104 (a) citations to Consol and Blacksville for the contributory issues.

Blackville no 2, located near Wana, West Virginia, has both longwall and continuous miner sections, with 427 underground employees and 49 surface employees.

Average production is approximately 11,000 tons per day.

A regular MSHA E01 inspection was completed on June 28, 2012 and another was ongoing at the time of the roof fall.

The mine’s non-fatal days lost incidence rate during the previous quarter was 3.17, versus the 3.48 national NFDL average.