B-shift set-up crew member Edison Hatathli was working the afternoon of November 12 as part of the continuous miner set-up when the conveyor belt tailpiece anchorage system failed.

“Within seconds, the belt overlapped itself, jamming the tailpiece and causing an upward lift, which pulled the remaining four anchor bolts out of the mine floor,” the agency said in its report.

“When this occurred, the tailpiece and belt conveyor recoiled outby in the belt entry approximately 73 feet. Hatathli was struck in the back by the tailpiece as it moved down the entry.”

Hatathli was taken to a local hospital in serious condition and died from his injuries on December 4.

MSHA found three items to be the root causes of the accident and all involved management shortfalls at San Juan.

First, safe work procedures were not followed for the beltline cleaning and maintenance, particularly when mine crews were resetting the feeder breaker at the tailpiece.

To rectify the issue, the agency ordered the complex install new safe operating procedures for feeder breaker positioning as well as task training for the impacted workers.

Additionally, MSHA found the tailpiece anchorage design was not completed properly.

It has asked that San Juan engineer a new system that will resist the tailpiece loads.

Finally, regulators found that management failed to train the B-shift set-up crew on the safe work procedures established in June 2003.

To bring the mine into compliance, officials implemented new written procedures detailing the proper procedure for shutting down and locking out the belt conveyors and trained all workers on the new process.

MSHA issued three citations to San Juan in relation to the incident: one for Section 104(a), 30 CFR 75.1722(c), one for Section 104(a), 30 CFR 48.29(a) for inadequate safety records, and Section 104(a), 30 CFR 75.1725(a) for a feeder breaker that was not in safe operating condition.

The San Juan mine operates one longwall and three continuous mining machine development sections, while liberating about 3.5 million cubic feet of methane each day.

It employs 468 miners (299 underground) and in 2007 produced 6.898Mt of coal

The last inspection before the incident was completed by MSHA on September 27, 2007.

Its non-fatal days lost incidence rate in 2007 was 1.94, compared with the national rate of 4.73 in the same period.