Exponent- Multimedia Plant Explosion
Not a cinema movie, but a video clip of a shockwave emananating ammonium perchlorate plant that exploded in Henderson, Nevada. Root cause: fracture in a 300-psi natural gas transmission line that ran underneath the plant.
Who videotaped this? A radio tower engineer and his crew, who were on a
peak several miles away, servicing a radio tower. Lucky video.
The plant made and stockpiled ammonium perchlorate for
use as an oxidizer in solid rocket motors, in particular the SRM's made
by Morton Thiokol for the space shuttle.
At the time of the blasts, nearly 9 million pounds of the chemical
that PEPCON workers referred to as "AP" or "product" was consumed by
flames or explosions. 2 people died, $70 million in damages to the surrounding community.