ML19249A992
| ML19249A992 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 05/09/1979 |
| From: | Wright L METROPOLITAN EDISON CO. |
| To: | |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 7908280680 | |
| Download: ML19249A992 (34) | |
Text
6
.t UNITED STATES OF AMERICA i
i NUCLEAR REGULATORY CCMMISSION 1
In the Matter of:
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IE TMI INVESTIGATION INTERVIEW 31 of Lynn 0~..en Wright, Control Room Operator, Unit 2
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I Trailer #203 9l NRC Investigation Site TMI Nuclear Power Plant 10j Middletown, Pennsylvania 11!
May 9, 1979 12:
(Date of Interview) 131 July 1, 1979 (Date Transcript Typed) 179 15!
(Tape Numocr(s))
16; 17t ISi 19i 20!
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NRC PERSONNEL:
'22 John R. Sinclair Tim Martin 23' 2 4
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j SINCLAIR: The following interview is being conducted of Mr. Lynn Owen f
Wright.
Mr. Wright is a Control Room Operator, Unit 2, Three Mile 3l Island Nuclear Power Facility.
The present time is 3:59 P.M.,
Eastern 4!
Daylight Time.
Today's date is May 9, 1979.
Place of the interview is SI j
Trailer 203, located immediately outside the South Gate to the Three 6i Mile :sland site. The individual present for the interview will be Mr.
Tim Martin.
Mr. Martin is an Inspection Specialist, Performance Appraisal i
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Branch, I&E Reactor Construction Inspection.
My name is John R. Sinclair, 9I anc' I'm an Investigator, Office of Inspector and Auditor, U.S. Nuclear 10 Regulatory Commission.
Prior to the interview being recorded, Mr.
11l Wright was prcuided a copy of the document explaining his rights concerning 12I information to be obtained regarding the Incident at Three Mile Island.
l 13l In addition, Mr. Wright was apprised of the purpose of the investigation, 14i the scope and the authority by which Congress authorizes the Nuclear 15!
Regulatory Commission to conduct investigations.
On the second page of 16!
the document, Mr. Wright has answered three questions.
Questions that 17!
Mr. Wright's replies are now being recorded as part of the interview.
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The first question Mr. Wright is: Do you understand the document?
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WRIGHT:
Yes.
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22f SINCLAIR:
The second, do we have your permission to tape the interview?
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6 WRIGHT:
Yes.
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3 SINCLAIR:
Third question, do you want a copy of the tape?
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WRIGHT:
Definitely.
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SINCLAIR: Okay. The purpose of this investigation by the U.S. Nuclear j
Si' Regulatory Ccranission is to determine exactly what occurred regarding the incident at Three Mile Island, Unit 2, which began on March 28, 10) 1979, and the responding actions taken by Metropolitan Edison Company.
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The investigation will include a review of the condition of the plant i
12 prior to the incident and the period investigated will extend to 12:01 13I a.m. March 31, 1979.
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15i You are asked to provide information in as much detail as you can recall 16:
concerning your site-related activities during this period, including 17!
your recommendations.
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The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission was given the responsibility and 20l authority by the Congress of the United States in the Atemic Energy Act 21; of 1954, as amended, and the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974, as 22 amended, to license nuclear power plants and to see they are operated I
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safely to protect the health and safety of the American Public.
It is 24l from this Act and Title 10, Code of Federal Regulations, that the U.S.
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Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Office of Inspection and Enforcement is 2
conducting this official investigation.
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You have the right to refuse to be interviewed.
If you consent t an interview, you may have someone of your choice present.
To assist in 6i obtaining every comment, exactly as it is given, and to expedite the 1
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interview, your permission to tape record this interview is requested.
8
You have the right to refuse to have the interview tape recorded.
As an CI1 alternative, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission investigators may prepare Ik a written record of your statements and request you to sign it.
You 11I have the right to refuse to give a signed statement.
In the absence of 12 a tape recording or a signed statement, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory i
131 Commission investigators will, to the best of their abilities, write 14{
your comments for inclusion in the investigative report.
Upon your 15-request you will be given a copy of your tape recording or signed statement.
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You have the right to request that your identity be protected and not 18r used in the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission investigation report.
191 However, because of the deep concern over this incicent by the American 20:
Public and government officials, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission 21.
cannot assure you that we will not release your name and interview 22!
contents if we receive official requests and requests by the public 23!
through the Freedom of Information Act.
If specifically requested, all 24!
attempts will be made by the investigators to keep from disclosing to 25; I
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Metropolitan Edison or other parties specific information.
You must 2
recognize that this is not an absolute guarantee.
Federal law prohibits 31
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your employer from discharging you or discriminating against you beca'se 4!
of your interview with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
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Your help and cooperation in providing information to the Nuclear Regula-7 tory Commission will be appreciated.
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9 SINCLAIR:
At this time, before I turn it over to Mr. Martin, I'd like 10l to get a brief explanation or a background from you as to your affiliation 11!
with the Nuclear Power Industry either as an Operator here w th Met Ed i
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and maybe any academic training or military training that you have as l
13l background, so if you could just give us a couple of minutes of that.
14t 15I WRIGHT:
Just briefly, I started with Met Ed eight years ago, almost to 16' the day of the accident, March 22, 1971 or 72.
At that time I was a 17l Utility A Worker at Crawford Generating Station which was an approximately 18!
130 megawatt coal firec plant.
I worked there for a period of slightly 19!
less than 2 years during which time I progressed to Auxiliary Bay Operator, 20 and I then interviewed to enter an Auxiliary Operator training program 21 at Three Mile Island. This was just prior to the commencement of Hot 22!
Functional Testing in Unit 1.
I spent 26 weeks in an Auxiliary Operator 23 training course and then onshift training and approximately 2 years as 24j an Auxiliary Operator in TMI Unit 1 and then went into a Unit 2 Control 25 i
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Room Operator training program, went through the TMI training course, an 2
8 week B&W Simulator training course followed by mock NRC Orals and h
Written and Casualty Orill. I returned to Three Mile Island where we 4!
were in training for I'd say approximately 2 more years until our final cu
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licensing exam by the NRC, and I've been operating in the Control Room O!
since that time.
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SINCLAIR:
Okay, thark you.
At this time I'm turning the questioning 9I over to Mr. Tim Martin.
10I 11 MARTIN:
Mr. Wright, we are trying to establish a sequence of events of 12' the operations that occurred on March 28 from the time of the trip 131 approximately 4 o' clock until the reactor coolant pump in the A loop was I
14 re-established that afternoon or evening around 8 o' clock. That's the 15 primary period of my interest.
I would like to get from you the periods 16.
of your involvement in the event and then I will focus in on the events 17; that occurred during those periods and attempt to better understand 18:
them.
So, if you can, would you start with approximately what time you 19; became involved and start into a scenario as you reme.nber it. I have in 20l fmnt of me and for the record a copy of the plant's strip chart, the l
21j Reactor Coolant wide range chart for pressure, which will assist us in 22 sequencing through the event.
So if you'll start, I'd appreciate it.
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WRIGHT:
Okay.
I was called at my home in Middletown, which is about 2 2:
i miles from the plant by my Shift Foreman, Adam Miller.
At that time I 31 l
was scheduled to report to work at 0700 for the normal 7-3 shift.
The 4;
time of the phone call was acproximately 5:45.
He called me, explained 5l that he was calling from his residence in, I believe it's Annville, Pa.,
that he had just been called by someone from Three Mile Island and 7ll irformed that there had been a reactor trip, turbine trip, I don't b
rec,ll fully, but I don't believe he mentioned anything about the fact, m~
or I don't even know if at the time he knew, there had been a ECCS 10[
j Actuation, Safety Injection, but he said that I was to report to the lif plant as soon as possible.
And I arrived here, I would say approximately 12 6:15.
And at the time, I entered the Control Room, I came in by the 13l West door started around the Diesel Generator control panels, and the 141 turbine plant, and electrical system panels.
I got as far as the Diamond 15 Control Panel and saw that there was what appeared to be a solid pressurizer 16 or a bum indication.
At that point I didn't know which it was, and the 17I Shift Supervisor, Bill Zewe, was on duty at the time and told me, you 13!
have the Secondary olant, meaning the turbine generators, secondary 19' auxiliary systens, take a turn over from Craig Faust, shut it down; in 20:
other words, what the normal response to a turbine reactor trip, securing 21 unnecessary secondary plant systems, making sure that everything is i
22 going as it should.
From that point forward, I would say at least 23 several hours, that was my major function, and most of what I know of 24 what was going on on the primary plant, was just from grabbing sight and 25j
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hearing of what was happening.
I know that when I came in there may 2'
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have been, as I recall, maybe 2 or 3 AMS Channels in alarms.
Now, we 3i have had trouble in the past with some of the Victoreen channels, usually 4l liquid monitors on systems that aren't even in service that have had i
Sl alarms on them for one reason or another.
At that time, I ccild not, with the time that I had to look at RMS, say that I saw anything that 7'
was l'1dicating, at 6:15 or whatever time it was that I got up there i
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somewhere, between that time and 6:30, that there was anythin;' t nat 9!
indicated to me that we were getting into a site emergency situation.
I 10I was processing, trying to get information from the, one of the 11-7 lli CR0's, Craig Faust, regarding by what means he was feeding the generators.
ld I did know very shortly after my arrival just from observation and it I
was explained to me that the "B" Steam Generator was bottled up because 14 they had indication that they had a tube leak in that generator.
So, 15 one of my primary concerns became to make sure that, if nothing else, we 16l did not lift any, either the atmospheric reliefs on either main steam 17 line, or any main steam safeties.
At that point, we were feeding with 18 the emergency feedwater pumps.
I know that both main feedpumps were 19!
tripped, and it was rather difficult, with the situation that these 20 fellows had on the panel, for the two of us to get together to try to 21:
make any kind of a smooth turnover, I would say it was probably an hour 22[
before it was fully turned over, as to that I had the turbine plant by 2
myself and knew everything that was going on, and running it.
I would 24j say that it was somewhere around 6:45 to 7:00 o' clock in that area when 25;
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we started gt ting a lot more RMS alarms, started coming in.
We had...at 2l!
that point, I believe it was my shift foreman, Adam Miller had arrived 3t by that time and was monitoring RMS, and I don't recall if it was he or i
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j if it was some other Control Room operator, possibly some of the engineers or supervisory people who were there, one who turned around to, I'm 61 pretty sure it was Jim, no it wasn't Jim Seelinger.
It may have been Gary Miller at that point said we have...that this person said, I believe, 8
i we have a Site Emergency, that HPR 214 is exceeding 8R per hour.
9l 10l MARTIN:
What monitor is that
..?
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WRIGHT:
That's the Reactor Building Dome monitor.
And I wish this had 13 been a month ago, I could have given you the names.
But I can recall 14 that Bill Zewe is Shift Supervisor and who was in charge from the opera-15 tions standpoint of that crew prior to the emergency.
Mike Ross, Unit 1 16 Supervisor of Operations, and I believe George Kunder, Unit 1 Technical 17 Supervisor, Unit 2 Technical Superintendent, whatever, were there.
I IS' don't recall just who declared the site emergency, all I remember is, it 19 was declared and immediately a couple of engineers, I believe one was 20l the Lead Electrical Engineer, Dick Bensel, immediately went back into 21; the Shif t Supervisors' office, started making phone calls per our emergency 22l procedures.
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MARTIN:
Mr. Wright, the thing which appeared to key the site emergency 2'
was the reactor building dome monitor?
4 WRIGHT:
That appeared to me to be the thing, again my attention was c]
fecused more on tne a;ondary plant. That was the thing that I heard that drew my attention to, hey, we have a real problem here.
That is 7'
l when I became aware of the severity of the situation, that, you know, we 8!
had activity anywhere to the extent that we had a site emergency on our 9f hands.
1Cf 11 MARTIN:
All right.
Would you continue in the scenario?
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13 WRIGHT:
Okay.
It's rather difficult going into the scenario, but just 14:
two key things during that day, I guess, that stick in my mind more than 15 anything else because I was directly involved in them.
One was the fact 16' that as were reducing in our main steam pressure, so forth, and had gone 17' onto auxiliary steam to feed our turbine gland sealing steam so that we 18!
could maintain vacuum in the condenser, which we needed to use cur 19t turbine bypass valves to remove heat from the "A" Steam Generator.
At, 20 when we came to a coint where we jLst did not have sufficient steam, we 21; saw it blip downward in condenser vacuum, upward on the chart, at that 22) point it's in trying to hold on, i had the gland steam control valve 23; bypass full open so that we could get maximum steam flow through the
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24 seals and noticed that we lost, I would say, in the neighborhood of a 25\\
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l ll half-inch vacuum. It was very quick, I didn't know when it was going ta stop, and drew this to the attention of several very bny pcopie, Mike 31 Ross and Bill Zewe... drawing their attention to it and trying to go 4!
ahead and get communications with Unit 1, which...their people control i
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pur auxiliary boilers, which we needed to supply steam at this point.
.in-forming them of this matter and being informed that the situation was in 7
hand.. Unit 1 had people tending the auxiliary boilers.
I tried to open 8-the..have an auxiliary operator open..the manual bypass around our 9
Unit 1, Unit 2 Aux Steam Isolation Valve, which is the motor-driven 10[
valve in the Control Room, ASP-23.
Rather than opening that, because I i
11 was aware that they had only 1 Aux Boiler in ser/ ice, and we were doing i
12l feedwater heating on Unit 1 preoaratory to their startup following a 13l rrfueling, I had an Aux Operator go down and start to cut in ASB-209, 14!
which is the manual bypass valve around the motor driven, so that we 15!
would take the minimum amount of steam required, take very little steam 16; for the seal of the turbine, which was my only consideration at that i
17; point.
But we did have some trouble communicating with Unit 1, and I 18!
got to say I don't know if the people over there realized the severity 19t of the situation that we were in at the time, because it seemed to be 20l taking an undue amount of plugging of them and getting in touch with 21!
them before they finally committed that, you know, let's use Priority 1 22 to get us the auxiliary steam.
What happened with the auxiliary boilers, 23l i
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lf whether they got a dirty fire eye, whether they lost drum level, I don't i
know, but for some reason the one auxiliary boiler that had been handling 31 the load went off while they were trying to get the second boiler in 41
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service.
And at that point we lost gland steam again.
We had had just
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some very slight positive pressure, enough to the hold seals.
And I was 6'
informed of this by phone by one of the Unit 1 Operators. I can't remember i
for sure who it was, but at that point I asked Mike Ross and Bill Zewe 8
what they wanted me to do with this.
My recommendation was:
let's take 9!
our chances with the seals, turbine seals aren't very important items at i
10 a time like this, let's try to maintain our condenser vacuum. We started 11l to lose a little vacuum again and finally the decision was made.
I 12 believe it was Mike Ross that ordered me to do it, was to go ahead shut 13 down our vacuum pumps, break condenser vacuums.
And at that time, I I
14 would say that time would be somewhere in the neighborhood of 8:30-9 15:
that wa stopped vacuum pumps and opened the vacuum breakers on the main 16i condenser, and of course at that point, approximately 18 inches of 17 vacuum, we go on our atmospheric dumps for steam pressure control, which 18[
by a virtue of the main, goes to the atmosphere.
And at that time, we 19i did not know how severely crapped up our feedwater might be, but we 20l certainly had to assume after having for some small period of time, I 21i don't know without going back in the log and looking just how long it P
22f was, the time the leak was detected from "B" Steam Generator until it 23l could be isolated, but I was sure that we had some activity in our 24{
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l MARTIN:
Mr. Wright, at this time you were feeding with the emergency 2
feedpumps?
3 WRIGHT:
That's right.
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MARTIN:
To the "A" Steam Generator? What was the source of their 7
suction?
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9 WRIGHT:
The source of their suction? The source of their suction would 1Cf have been to the best of my knowledge the condensate tanks.
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12l MARTIN:
Thank you, Mr. Wright.
You can continue.
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14 WRIGHT:
At this point, I lose all track of time frame.
There's only 15:
other major event that sticks out in my mind as far as time, which would 16l be at 1400, when we had I would say no less than our second or third 17l containment isolation signal, and our building spray pump started, which i
18i we have since been told has been figured out to have been caused by a 19:
hydrogen explosion in the building.
At that time, I know it was an 20j instantaneous spike up to roughly 29 pounds on our reactor building 21:
pressure recorders.
But people were zerced in on the pressurizer, 22!
trying to get some type of bubble and at this point I'm not sure whether i
23j this was when we were trying to reduce pressures and try to get on decay 24!
heat removal, which is one thing we did. Whether it fell into this time i
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l:i frame or not, but I know we were trying to jeg our electromatic relief 2;'
isolation valve hoping to draw a bubble, and again some control over 3
pressurizer level and pressure.
But when this occurred, I was again on 4!
the secondary plant and I'm sure that by this time, we were feeding with i
5 our condensate pumps to our normal startup feedwater valves.
Once we OI ge down to approximately 120 pounds pressure, anything less than 150, 7
we can feed our steam generators just off of our condensate pumps.
Si 9
MARTIN:
Mr. Wright, do you have any idea approximately what time you 10[
shifted from the emergency feed to the condensate pump for feeding Steam 11l Generator? Can you tie it in with an event which might of occurred at i
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approximately the same time?
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WRIGHT:
I can't, I can't recall anything that sticks out in my mind on 15 that.16-17l MARTIN:
Can you tie to a reason for shifting from the emergency fee.
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condensate?
19i 20i WRIGHT:
The only reason I can tie in was the difference in hot well i
21l temperature by coming right off, straight off, storage tank.
The fact i
22l that the condensate pumps could handle the load at that point, it was a 23[
normal shutdown situation.
We were maintaining our 50% or greater 24 level, I know.
At one point we had increased level greater than 50% in 25' i
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l the generator.
I said I'm just sorry this interview is so darn far down the road, so I can't remember some of the sequences of events.
I'm sure 3l your computer printout shows a lot of this.
But as far as anything in 41 particular, I would just say steam generator pressure, due to cooldown Cl and so forth, got low enough that we were less than 150 pounds.
I would i
9 say we were in the neighborhood of 100 pounds on the steam header pressure i
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in the "A" Generator at the time that we shifted to the condensate l
8l pumps.
9I 10 MARTIN:
Fine, Mr. Wright.
To help bracket the time that you were lli involved in the event, what time did you leave the site during this I
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event?
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WRIGHT:
I left here approximately 1930.
I 15; 16l MARTIN:
All right Mr. Wright.
I'd like to take you through the scenario 17!
as we understand it, and attempt to pick up,.ne information of possible 18i things that you saw, hopefully to jog your memory. At approximately 6:15 191 the morning, 6:20, somewhere in that area, the block valve on the n
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_ ectromatic relief was shut, do you remember that? Did that event 21!
register?
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23l WRIGHT:
No.
I can't say it did.
I know now from hearing everyone talk d
24; when we tried to put things together Mat it was shut at that time. I 25l f
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would have guessed that it had been shut earlier.
I would say it was 2'
i shut, evidently, just prior to my arrival.
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i MARTIN:
All right.
When you did arrive in Unit 2 Control Room, what 1
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impression did you have of things that were going on at the Makeup Panel 6
as you entered the Control Room, and why you were assuming it?
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WRIGHT:
My initial impression was, just from looking at all the alarm 9!
panels and so forth, it was pretty obvious that safety injection had i
10' occurred.
Like I said, the thing that stopped me short when I got to 11}
the Diamond Panel, about that far over, on my way to look and see what i
1.2l the situation was at the Makeup Panel, was pressurizer level being I
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out-of-sight high.
At that point, I had no idea whether that was a true 14!
indication, whether level had been, level indication, had failed high, 15 or what the situation was.
I wish I could recall pressure, just what 16' the pressure was at the time.
But the.
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MARTIN:
All right Mr. Wright.
Sometime after this and while you were 191 assuming your watch an the condensate system on the secondary system, we 20-had a star'
- a reactor coolant pump.
Do you remember any problems 21l that they had in starting that pump?
22 23 WRIGHT:
Here again, it was mostly hearing what was going on bJt I 24l would, as I recall, there was a problem on the pump.
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11 they tried to start more than one pump.
There was a problem with 2f several..at least one would not start..and if I'm not mistaken, one gave no start indication but the oil pumps went off and it gave, as far 4I as amps, it gave indication of running.
That pump, as I recall, was d
"l shut down because of vibration, and also this totally illogical situation i
0 of non-running indications as far as light indications, so forth, yet 7
oil pumps which knock off when you get a full speed signal on the pump, 8
going off and having amps showing on the pump running amps.
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MARTIN:
Do you remember the approximate amperage that was observed?
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12l WRIGHT:
No.
I would not have been able to see that from my vantage 13 point.
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MARTIN:
How does this event tie in with the declaration of a site 16i emergency? Was this before or after?
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WRIGHT:
I really can't honestly answer that.
191 20.
MARTIN:
All right.
The reactor coolant pump was in actuality run for 21; about 19 minutes.
It was finally tripped, we don' t whether it was by 22i operator actions or by something else. Do you ha a y insights in this 23 area?
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li WRIGHT:
No, I really don't.
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MARTIN:
Once the pump was tripped off the line, what operator action 4!
was taken relative to the Makeup Panel? Did you observe anything over 5
there?
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7 WRIGHT:
I can remember at least one time, having high pressure injecticn i
8 re-initiated.
At this time, I believe the people in the Shift Supervisor's 9f office and were on the phone on some type of communications with the i
10f NRC, and with Babcock and Wilcox.
And the order came out, get high 11 pressure injection, and I would say it was probably coincident with this 12f inability, or whatever was tripping or operator actions as far as reactor i
13l coolant pump.
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MARTIN:
Now, during this period the "B" Steam Generator is isolated and 16i we are steaming the "A" Steam Generator, heating with the emergency 17!
feed, and what level was being maintained?
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WRIGHT:
As I can recall we were approximately 50% on the oper ating 20!
range in the generators at the time.
I know that.
I 21j 22 MARTIN:
Does that level correspond to some procedural limiti 23l 24 251 i
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WRIGHT:
Okay.
A 50% limit would be to induce natural circulation on 2
i loss of the reactor coolant pumps.
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MARTIN:
All right.
For the next several hours, were you still attemcting Si j
to maintain 50% level?
Si 7l j
WRIGHT:
You know that one day runs to another, and we were doing various 4
8l things, but I would say the day of the emergency also that, that at 1
91 least on one occasion, we took level Ngher than 50% range.
We took 10i 1
that, and we know we kept logs of the steam generator levels in the last
^lll month.
But I don't know why the numbers, they could be all wrong.
I'm 12f sure you can tell me better than I could tell you.
I'd say we probably 1~5; had it up to 380 inches or so, at least at one point.
14t 15'.
MARTIN:
All right Mr. Wright.
Approximately at this time, Mr. Millcr 16l came in, Mr. Rogers came in, several other people arrived on site.
Was 17l there ever another attemot to start the reactor coolant pumps?
ISf 19i WRIGHT:
It runs in my mind here, there's more than one attempt.
But 20!
there again, I don't know if I'm associating the multiple attempts that 21 we talked about previously or whether it was the second attempt later in 22 the day.
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1 MARTIN:
All right, Mr. Wright.
Let's proceed further, pressure was 2!
j slowly dying off on the primary system during this period, and who was 3
operating the makeup system at this time, do you have any idea?
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WRIGHT:
The people I remember being over at the makeup system operating 6i it, Ed Fredericks and the foreman, Fred Scheimann, was at one point, in 7
fact for quite a while, you could see it on the charts, they were cycling 8
the electromatic relief block valve, trying to hopefully establish some al kind of a bubble. I do recall that, and I would say that most of the 10I l
manipulations, if not all of them as far as mckeup pumps, as far as 11';
initiating or securing high pressure injection, was done by Ed Fredericks i
12) 13l SINCLAIR:
The time is 4:30 PM and we're gonna break for just a moment 14!
to change the tape.
15r 16 SINCLAIR:
The time is 4: 31 PM.
We are continuing the interview with 17!
Mr. Wright.
181 191 MARTIN:
All right, Mr. Wright, sometime after 9 o' clock in the morning, 20; a decision was made to increase the pressure in the primary system and t
21l to control pressure in a band between 2200 and 2000 pounds, cycling some 22) valve on the pressurizer, are you knowledgeable of what valve was chosen l
23 for this duty?
24l 25-1 I
1 )
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I'
I 20 l
1 WRIGHT:
At the time I would have said it would have been the electromatic 2
relief valve.
But here again, this is with hindsight and knowing that 31 I
there had been indication all too late, I guess, that the electromatic 4l j
was not receding when it should, that I would say now that the controlling Si j
pressure had to be doing it on the block valve.
61 i
7l j
MARTIN:
Approximately 7 hours8.101852e-5 days <br />0.00194 hours <br />1.157407e-5 weeks <br />2.6635e-6 months <br /> into the event, around 11:00 o' clock, 3
8I caother decision was made to increase the range of pressures that would 9]
be allowed to be controlled in.
Do you have any knowledge of the basis 10 for that decision?
11 12I WRIGHT:
No, I don't.
13 1
14 MARTIN:
All right.
At approximately 11:35, something like that, we :ve 15!
that the pressure in the primary systems starts to tail off very rapidly, 16:
heading for a low of around 400 pounds.
Do you have any knowledge of 17I why this occurred?
18!
19' WRIGHT:
Now you are saying as far as time, you say around 11:00 o' clock.
20!
21 MARTIN:
It was 11:35, approximately.
22' I
23l WRIGHT:
It seems a little early for me, but that was an awfully long 2
day.
25 t,
7 Is 1 i_
21 Il!
MARTIN:
I understand.
2!
31 l
WRIGHT:
But I would say that that was the point at which a decision was 4!
made, let's try it and get this pressure down, try to get on the decay 5
heat removal, so tha;. we can run into decay heat removal pump and know 6
we have flow, have cooling of the system.
Because I remember there were two different operators, myself and later another CR0 on my shift, Mark 0
Coleman, who went down to the shutdown from outside the Control Room h
panel to watch reactor coolant system pressure.
We were trying to head 10I it down below 320 pounds so that we can go on the decay heat removal.
11:
The lowest I saw on that indication down there, which is a digital i
12 readout, was 385 pounds.
And it held there for awhile and moved up to 13l 387 and then started back up.
Now, we were down below and I don't know i
14!
if a decision was consciously made at that point this won't work, or 15' whether other things happened.
r 16:
I 17!
MARTIN:
All right, Mr. Wright.
During this transient down from around 18!
2000 pounds to 500 pounds, was..you were I believe at that time on the 19' atmospheric dumps?
20l 21 WRIGHT:
Yes, I'm sure we were at that time.
22 23 MARTIN:
Somewhere probably between this period of time, you were directed l
24i to secure those dumps.
Do you remember that? And if so, do you remember i
25i the basis for it?
i i
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i I
l 22 l!
WRIGHT:
I'm sure of the basis of that, I know what a good sound reasoning 2:
l is, like limit the amount of possibly, and in fact at that point I would 3l l
say we were fairly sure we had some activity in the steam that we were 4i releasing to the atmosphere through those dumps.
Si
~
I 6i MARTIN:
Is that based upon samples from the steam generators?
7 8
WRIGHT:
I can't really honestly answer that because at that point I Cl
]
don't even know if we had people that were onsite that would have been
'0l
^
taking samples of steam generators.
It s'_emed to me that we had people If in the Control Room and out or emergency parties and that was about all 12 we had.
What was going on in the Chem Lab's, I don't know.
13f 14!
MARTIN:
When you did secure the atmospheric steam dumps? How soon 15; before you were able to re establish steaming to the condenser?
16:
17I WRIGHT:
I'd have to look at a cnart.
18!
19 MARTIN:
Do you have a gut feeling?
20j 21!
WRIGHT:
I couldn't begin to tell you what time.
I remember putting the 22l condenser back under vacuums and establishing seals and going under 23' vacuum, but as how the time factor relates from when we secured the 24!
steaming of the atmospheric dumps 'til we went went back to the condenser 25!
to the bypass valves, I couldn't even give you a good guess on that.
3 or f).{
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23 ll' MARTIN:
All right, Mr. Wright.
I'll jump back a little bit in time.
i I'm not sure of the exact time for this but when you shifted from cae f
condenser to the atmospheric steam dumps was there an operation that we 4 !
had to do with the condenser circ water pumps to satisfy interlocks.
5l l
6i WRIGHT:
There's one thing that we must do that is quicker than waiting
'or your vacuum on your main condenser, which is to go down the left of 8!
three circ water pumps, which will automatically change the control from
(
9l the turbine bypass valves to the atmospheric dump valve.
I 10' 11!
MARTIN:
Was this the mechanism we used to s' tift over to the atmospheric 12, dumps to prevent this... losing them all (?'
.on condenser vacuum?
13l P
14l WRIGHT:
Anymore, I don't remember for sure, but it would definitely 15:
have been the quickest way.
16' 17 MARTIN:
So, we don't know if you did that operation, but that was one 18; of the ways?
191 20' WRIGHT:
It's amazing what you can't remember. I would say that we would i
21l have to, thougi., 'ecause we've been through a problem before where we 22!
did lose vacuum, and set a record for lifting a low pressure turbine i
23i rupture disc because we tried to wait for the last possible moment i
24!
before going on the atmospheric dumps.
Actually, the thing that had 25!
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24 I
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gotten us that time was still steaming feed pumps to a condenser on i
2'
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which the vacuum had been totally lost.
I'd say with just that reaction, you know, past practice you might say, we most likely did go to the circ 4!
water pumps as the quickest means to avoid overpressurizing the main El
]
condenser.
Si i
7 MARTIN:
All right Mr. Wright.
Let's continue at approximately noon we 8
were at 1,000 pounds and dropping, by 1:00 o' clock we were around 500 9
pounds, and we probably see some first indications of something about 10f core flood tanks.
Could you give me any idea of what mignt of happened?
l 11l l
12!
WRIGHT:
Yeh, there was one idea being kicked around, of let's get i
13l pressure down.
Core flood tanks we maintained within tech specs 585 to 14!
625, so we were somewhere, I'd say, about 600 pounds on core flood tank i
1%
pressure.
To get down below that, let core flood go in, of course since 16 it wasn't controlled drop, in other words, not going to zero, not your 17!
design basis LOCA or anything, they tended to, what's the terminology i
18!
used I don't know, but they emptied at a rather slow rate.
It wasn't 19; the instantaneous discharge from the nitrogen overpressure that you 20' would expect on what they were really designed for..trying to get that 21!
borated and cooler water right into the core.
22 23 21l I
25l 4
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i3 l
MARTIN:
Did you observe that decrease in core flood tank level?
t 2'
f WRIGHT:
I can't say that I stood there and decreased it at the time.
f There again, with the conversation that was going on, and I'm aware that l
5l there was a decrease, that there were several people back watching the i
k core flood tanks and at a later time when I got around that panel, yes 7l they were down.
I would say somewhere in the neighborhood of around 8 -
l 8l 8 1/2 feet, I believe.
ei i
10l MARTIN:
During the following hour, and I guess your time is probably lAj lost to you, but did you hear anything during that morning or afternoon 12l while we sat at this low pressure? Anything peculiar?
13l 14l WRIGHT:
You mean like on the sound monitoring channels?
15!
16 MARTIN:
Sound monitoring channels by the i
17!
i 18; WRIGHT:
Equipment 19!
20:
MARTIN:
Any equipment or abnormal noises?
21l 22!
WRIGHT:
I think I know what you're referring to around 1400, and I 23 heard that some people heard this.
I didn't.
Talk about something i
24l coming over related..I've heard it described as a pop...or anything 25l 1
qO 4
'k ih
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26 i
i 1l that I guess was ta have indicated that possibly we did have a hydrogen 2'
l explosion..I didri't hear it, but other people who were up there I know, 31 including Gary Miller, heard something.
4l i
'i MARTIN:
What was the states of your steam generators at this point?
61 7
WRIGHT:
The status of the steam generators.
At this point? Well, I 8l know the "B" was bottlec up, that's about all I would say. At this point 9!
we better have been on feeding with condensate on the "A" generator.
We i
10l changed so many directicos for cartain things at various times that I am 11 trying to remember if and, if so, how many times we may have even gone 12) back to emergency feed.
I don't really recall.
I 13l 14 MARTIN:
Let's continue.
At any time during that afternoon, do you 15 remember Mr. Miller having to leave, Mr. Milier and Mr. Kunder having to 16:
leave Unit 2 Control Room, and do you know for what purpose?
17!
i 18i WRIGHT:
The one t'me that I remember, I remember hearing..whether it 19' was a phone call directly from Jack Herbein on radio or what it was.
.I 20 know at one time Gary Miller had to leave.
I was not aware of George 21l Kunder being called.
Something or the idea of having t.o go either to 22 the Observation Center to meet with the Governor, or go up to the Governor's 23j Office, sometime durir.g that afternoon, wnich was kina of a surprise to 24l me-25i I'. o '
n.
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27 i
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MARTIN:
You were unaware of their having left, though?
2l 3t WRIGHT:
I'm aware that from time to time they were not...you know, 4l' George I don't know, Gary had to leave at one point.
i Si 1
0 MARTIN:
Do you have any feel for how long Mr. Miller was gone?
7 81 WRIGHT:
No.
9j 10 MARTIN:
Who were you receiving your directions and orders from?
11; 12j WRIGHT:
Well, I was receiving them from Bill Zewe, from Mike Ross and 13 of course, we had other people coming in.
I actually worked over, what 14 you might say, three different crews that day, the off going 11-7 crew; 15; my own crew, which was Greg Hitz, Shift Supervisor; and the crew that 16!
relieved us, I believe it was Joe Chwastyk who was the Shift Supervisor.
I 17l 18!
MARTIN:
All rig..t Mr. Wright.
During this afternoon up to around 4:00 19!
o' clock, you were attempting to establish natural circulation in the 20l loops.
Are you familiar with the operation that they were attempting, 21 to get this going?
22' 23 WRIGHT:
As far as establishing natural circulation I tell you the truth 24l it seemed to me like we changed again.
I'll say we changed directions.
i 25i l
(IL'f u3 c
- si I,.)
[
28 i
l:'
It seemed that somebody was on the phone.
When someone suggested, this 2f we tried it, such as I mentioned, that we had high pressure injection.
3!
At least once...I would say I come in twice...as we went to high pressure 4!
during the day.
I'd say probably somewhere between when I first Si arrived...and it always seemed to come out of the Shift Supervisor's 6
office, meaning whoever the people were who were talking with Parsippany, 7I King of Prussia, Lynchburg and whoever.
I don't rank high enough in the 8
hierarchy to know who was giving whom advice.
9i i
10)
MARTIN:
I understand.
l 1 11 12!
WRIGHT:
I know going back on the bit when we broke vacuum on the turbine, 13l it did not seem like the proper thing to do to me, but when you're in an i
14!
emergency situation like that, the last thing in the world you want is 15:
for everybody to be going their own way.
Somebody has to give directions.
16!
Sometimes there's a lot of different ways of doing things, and there can 17i be some ways better than others.
But just because it's not your way, 18!
it's not always wrong. There were men like Mike Ross who were more less 19; standing back.
It was their responsibility to have the big picture.
It 20!
was ours to manipulate the controls and operate the panels.
That's the i
21j way I felt about that, and as far as a lot of other things, I can defin-22l itely say it wasn't a normal day.
It wasn't something where everybody 23l there knew what everyone else was doing.
24l 25!
i l
f)4,O{
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29 i
1:
MARTIN:
At some point of this afternoon, who decided to repressurize i
2' i
the primary system, leave the core flood tanks behind and to attempt to 3I collapse the bubble in the reactor coolant system? Do you have a feel 4l for Wm. that decision was made, and how it was executed?
5' 6
WRIGHT:
Everything is going together to me.
For the most part, the 7l first time that I really got on the primary plant was the following day, 8!
when we actually did have a few inches of indicated pressure
..a few 9
inches from being offscale on the pressurizer level.
I 10i 11!
MARTIN:
All right, Mr. Wright.
I 12!
13l WRIGHT:
I'd say this was the point when pressure was brought back up to 14 try to collapse the bubble, and it was kind of tough to collapse the 15' bubble at a low point in your system, running at a reduced pressure.
16' I
17i MARTIN:
All right, so at this point he primary system pressure was IS increased to approximately 2?00 pounds, and then we see a distinct 19!
flattening-off of the pressure. Do you have any idea how they maintained 20l pressure control at this point?
21l 22 WRIGHT:
Well, if it's a whole bunch of squiggly lines like it was l
23l 24!
25l i
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t.
30 1
It
{
MARTIN:
It's not, it's f1at.
2:
I 6
31 WRIGHT:
It's flat.
How pressure was controlled?
I can't help you 4!
there.
Like I said, the thing I remember is the cycling of the electro-5i matic block valve.
61 7l l
MARTIN:
All right.
Just before you got. relieved of watch, in fact 8!
let's see, you got relieved about 1930?
9l 10l WRIGHT:
That's what time I got out of here, I anymore I don't know.
i 11l l
12!
MARTIN:
Were they attempting to start a reactor coolant pump as you i
13!
were getting relieved?
14i 15!
WRIGHT:
Plans were being made to start one.
16l 17 MARTIN:
Do you have any idea of what kind of acoblems they were exper-18l iencing?
19l 20!
WRIGHT:
No, I can't say that off hand I do, tther than that all I I
21l remember is, again, the conversation regarcing, you know, with the 22l pressure we were carrying.
At this point pec')le were becoming aware i
23l that we had some bubt,les in the system, or at least a bubble somewhere.
I 24!
And the idea was, what happened if that goes into reactor coolant pumps.
i
{
31 l!
As far as if you are referring to any, in other words, attempts to 2
start, attempts on the pumps that were unsuccessful, at that point I 31 don't recall.
4j i
5 {'
MARTIN:
Do you remember any discussion of problems with the lift pumps, 6'!
or back stop oil pumps?
7 8l WRIGHT:
Only that I've mentioned earlier, about the incongruous indica-9 tion; but there again I can't say that I witnessed...,you know.
101 11l MARTIN:
All right, Mr. Wright.
Let's leave the event for a moment, and 12{
I'm looking for some background information.
One of the hypotheses for 13 causing the initial trip was that we had a problem with the polisher 14 isolation valve system.
Part of that hypothesis revolves around intro-15; ducing water into the control lines for the air-operated isolation 16:
valves.
To your knowledge had that ever occurred?
17l 18!
WRIGHT:
Yes.
It has never occurred when I have been on duty, but I'm 19!
aware that we have had problems before with that system, as far as air.
20f 21l MARTIN:
With water getting into the system and causing the controllers 22I to malfunction?
?
23 2Ni 25i 3
6: i.; r
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l
l i
f 32 l
l ll' WRIGHT:
Yes.
As a matter of fact, at one point...this was back during 2f hot functionals...we even had resins from the polishers back through 31 demin water lines, and as I recall we even got them into, well, anything i
4!
that had a surge tank on it that was filled by demin water. We did have ci*t our share of problems in polishing.
I 6i l
7!
MARTIN:
Could you describe or help me understand how this is possible?
I 8l i
9l WRIGHT:
No.
10l l
ll!
MARTIN:
Can you identify someone who might be able to help me?
I 12l 13 WRIGHT:
I would say any of your Auxiliary Operators who work the conden-14 sate polishing panel.
15[
16!
MARTIN:
Is there any specific engineer who works with this particular 17l system and could be very knowledgeable in its operation in malfunctions?
18; 19)
WRIGHT:
We have two.
Don Berry and, well, Walter Bubba Marshall.
204 21:
MARTIN:
All right Mr. Wright, I've exhausted my normal questions.
I 22l guess I'm gonna ask for your assistance here.
Is there any aspect of 23 this event that I haven't asked you a question about, which you have 24j knowledge of, and might assist me in analysis of this event.
And if so, 25j would you please relate it to me.
a; i
]Ui
,JJ
1 i
33 l
ll' j
WRIGHT:
No.
The only thing I could have given you was a day or two 2!
j after the event, when people were still arguing as to whether or not the 31 building spray pumps had started and how long they run, because I shut i
4!'
them down and I know that they ran for a long enough period of time to c*
spray, but I think you already established all that.
6i MARTIN:
How long did they run?
8 9!
WRIGHT:
My best estimate...I'd say 5 or 6 minutes.
10f 11f MARTIN:
Do you have any other areas that you might be able to expand i
12!
on?
13 I
14' WRIGHT:
Not off the top of my head.
15, 16' MARTIN:
All right, Mr. Wright.
17!
18:
WRIGHT:
I didn't have any prepared notes.
19i 20l MARTIN:
At this time we usually ask if the interviewee has any comments 21j that he'd like to put on the record.
I'll open it up to you right now 22!
if you desire to do so.
23!
24l 25i (j'$ \\
\\,0 0
^
1
i 34 i
1 WRIGHT:
I don't have any more ccmments.
2l 3
MARTIN:
Mr. Wright, I appreciate it and I'm going to turn this back i
4
over to Mr. Sinclair.
It's all yours, John.
i 5l i
6l SINCLAIR:
Thank you Mr. Wright.
The time is presently 4:54 PM.
We are 7I j
going to conclude this interview with Mr. Wright.
t 8l 9l 10l I
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15; 16.
1' 18l 19!
20!
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