Inquiry on Lost Ship Told of Explosives
An expert on explosives for the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Mines testified yesterday at the Coast Guard’s inquiry into the disappearance last February of the ship Sulphur Queen.Michael G. Zabetakis, project coordinator of the bureau’s explosives research laboratory at Pittsburgh, said tests were set up to determine what gases could be created when hot sulphur, which the ship was carrying, comes in contact with various materials.
The Coast Guard has tried to determine in the long series of hearings whether the sulphur might have exploded. The ship, with a crew of 39 men, disappeared on a voyage from Beaumont, Tex. to Norfolk, Va.
The witness told the inquiry board that gases formed by impurities in the sulphur might have exploded. Such an explosion probably would have been moderate, however, because of escape vents, he said.
New York Times, 23 May 1963.