The Case of the Green Bananas

I thought that it was the worst April Fool’s prank of all time.

The phone rang rather late on April 1, 1983. It was not only April Fool’s Day but it was also Good Friday that year. “Ed, the LaPorte, TX Spec Gas Plant just blew up. You’re booked on an 8AM flight tomorrow. Happy Easter.”

It was not an April Fool’s prank. Fortunately, no one was hurt, but half the building was no more. The explosion even made the local Houston TV news, not that chemical plant explosions are anything new there. The World’s Largest Oil Refinery (at the time), more famous as the workplace of John Travolta’s character in Urban Cowboy was just down the road from Air Products and regularly sent up plumes of black smoke.

It didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to discover what caused the explosion. In fact, it could be called The Case of the Green Bananas. Bananas don’t take very long to go from green to yellow to mushy brown. Shipments by boat from Central and South America can take weeks. How do the bananas stay green all that time?

The answer is the same as why placing an apple in a sack of potatoes prevents them from sprouting. Apples generate ethylene gas and ethylene delays the ripening process in many foods. “Big Banana” fitted its ships with gas-tight holds and hydrogen-ethylene gas supply systems.

Those holds really had to be gas-tight. Hydrogen is the fun stuff that blew up the Hindenburg and can be ignited by static electricity in the air. Ethylene burns like a champ as well. On the positive side, the lack of oxygen in the ship’s hold kills any tarantulas that may be hitched a ride on banana stalks. Air Products delivery guys would scare the office girls with dead tarantulas.

On April 1, 1983, we filled a rack of hydrogen-ethylene cylinders on a manifold with a mercury pressure gauge. Bad idea. The cylinders had a copper rupture disc. Mercury eats copper. Enough mercury migrated into the cylinders that their rupture discs blew hydrogen/ethylene all over the Flammable Fill Area a few hours later. Even though the Area was completely spark-proof, there was enough static electricity in the air to ignite the gas mixture. Ka-boom. Just like the Hindenburg. This actually delayed banana shipments until more gas could be provided.

I still tremble when the phone rings on April Fool’s Day and I really don’t like bananas anymore.

By Ed Dufton