One of the five workers killed in last week’s drilling rig explosion near Quinton, Oklahoma will be buried Tuesday.
The funeral for Matthew Smith of McAlester will be held at the McAlester Southeast Expo Center at 2 p.m. His family asked that rather than flowers for the funeral, those attending make contributions to help pay for the education of Smith’s young son.
The federal government added another agency on the investigation of the deadly blast. The U.S. Chemical Safety Board has investigators on site trying to learn more about the incident. They arrived last week and met with the lease holder for the well and the drilling operator.
“CSB investigators will continue to meet with well service providers and the well site consultant company that had employees on site at the time of the incident. Evidence preservation and collection is the initial focus of the investigation,” stated the CSB in making the announcement.
The board is an independent, non-regulatory federal agency and its mission is to drive chemical safety change through independent investigations to protect people and the environment.
CSB investigations examine all aspects of chemical incidents, including physical causes such as equipment failure as well as inadequacies in regulations, industry standards, and safety management systems.