| Environmental Checks |
 Routine Environmental Checks could have averted the White Hill Earth Station disaster in 1991. Whitehills is the Mercury satellite transmission site based in Oxford. Somebody there decided that they needed a longer standby time in the event of mains failure. In order to achieve this they put two large banks of batteries in a metal container next to the main equipment building. The initial work was conducted in the early spring; temperatures were low and the container was cool. Bring on the summer and temperatures in the seventies and eighties, an all-metal container with no ventilation - all the ingredients for thermal runaway. And runaway it did. Strangely when it exploded it was six thirty in the evening and not at the height of the midday sun. Thankfully there was only one operative on site. The HSE report detailed an estimated temperature within the container of 130°C prior to the explosion; the batteries had got hotter and hotter until they eventually went into a runaway situation. The report also indicated that no inspections or checks had been made in the container. The facilities manager was quoted as saying “they were just batteries - we had them fitted and then forgot about them!" CPS Auxilion Routine Maintenence checks include:
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