According to the Associated Press, US District Judge John Copenhaver signed off on the Massey Energy subsidiary’s plea deal even though a provision giving Massey officials and the parent company prosecution immunity existed. The agreement also entailed a $1.7 million fine to the US Mine Safety and Health Administration for incurred civil violation found in a federal investigation.

Massey representatives did not return an ILN request for comment by press time.

Individually conducted state and federal reviews of the incident found that the fire, which took the lives of miners Don Bragg and Ellery Elvis Hatfield, was caused by an overheated conveyor belt.

After the fire began, the two workers became separated from their crew and lost amid smoke in an area that was to be a sealed escapeway. The federal investigation later said Aracoma had removed two ventilation walls that permitted the smoke to enter.

Last week the mine’s foreman, David Runyon, entered a misdemeanour guilty plea in the case for not performing safety drills at Aracoma. He is scheduled to be sentenced on July 9.

The same US district judge deferred a ruling on whether or not he would take the plea until Runyon’s sentencing. Initially, the foreman had been indicted for five counts of neglecting to perform required drills or falsifying lessons.

Runyon is facing as much as a year in prison and a fine of $100,000, the news service said.

In a hearing last week, the foreman testified that not all of his seven-man crew had been led through safety drills from the active section to the surface between October 22, 2005, and January 19, 2006, despite MSHA regulations stipulating mandatory drills every 90 days.

"The whole crew never did the whole drill," Runyon said.