...It was the explosion of a High Density Polyethylene plant in the Houston area. The explosion killed 23 people. The way I understand it, the plant had a line plugged by hardened polymer that limited production. Someone in management wanted to unplug the line while the plant was running to save money. Maintenance management refused, citing safety issues. An outside contractor was hired to do the job over internal objections.

Something big went wrong during the process and the resulting explosion killed 23 workers plus destroying a wide swath of the plant.

My acquaintance was a manager for the company at another plant who was selected for the investigation and he placed the blame squarely on the company. They fired him. Due to his management position, he got 3 years of severance pay. Several months later, when they finally accepted most of the blame for the incident, they offered to hire him back into his old position but they required him to return a proportional share of the severance. He refused.