ML20237K250

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Partially Deleted Transcript of 850820 Investigative Interview in Newport,Mi Re 850702 Reactor Operator Error at Plant.Pp 1-18
ML20237K250
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Issue date: 08/20/1985
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FOIA-86-245 NUDOCS 8708270116
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. ORIGINAL

  • T UhllEU STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION i

IN THE MNITER OF: DOCKET NO:  ;

INVESTIGATIVE INTERVIEW l OF i BARI ARORA i

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'i LOCATION: NEWPORT, MICHIGAN PAGES: 1 - 18 i

DATE: TUESDAY, AUGUST 20, 1985 l

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1 0394 90 01 1 l WRBeb 1 UNIT,ED STATES OF AMERICA ,

2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION-3- Office of Investigations

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4 __________ _________________________ .

l 5 In the matter of:  : 1 1

6 DETROIT EDISON.. COMPANY a 7 (Fermi Nuclear Power Station No. 2) :

g ;___________________________________:

I 9 Room 164,

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10 Nuclear Operations Center, 11 Fermi-2 Nuclear Power Station, I i

12 Newport, Michigan. j 13 Tuesday, 20 August 1985 l 14 Investigative interview of HARI ARORA was

15. conducted in closed conference beginning at 4:20 p.m., when i 16 were present: I 17 JAMES N. KALKMAN, NRC Investigator 18 CARL LANG, NRC Reactor Inspector-19 f PETER MAROUARDT, Esq., Detroit Edison Company <

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20 SUSAN BEALE, Esq., Detroit Edison Company 21 l

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ACE FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.

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l 9394 01 el 2 WRBeb 1 PROCEEDI NGS 2 MR.-KALKMAN: For the record, this is an 3 interview of Hari Arora, who is employed by Detroit Edison 4 Company. The location of this interview' is the Fermi 2 5 Nuclear Power Statiori in Newport, Michigan.

6 Present at this interview are Mr. Arora, Detroit 7 Edison Counsel, Mr . Marquardt and Ms. Beale, NRC Reactor 1 l l l 8 Inspector, Mr. Lang, and NRC Investigator James Kalkman.

l 9 The subject matter of this interview concerns a 10 reactor operator error which occurred at-Fermi'2 Nuclear 11 Power Station on. July 2nd, 1985.

12 Mr. Arora, would you please stand and raise your 13 right hand?

14 Whereupon, 15 HARI ARORA 16 was called as a witness and, having been first duly sworn, 17 was examined and testified as follows: l

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18 EXAMINATION 19 BY MR. KALKMAN:

20 0 Mr. Arora, what is your position?

21 A I am Reactor Engineer.

22 0 Reactor Engineer?

23 A Yes.

24 O Are you a management person?  !

25 A Yes.

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ACE FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.  :

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WRBeb 1 -

0 Do you head up the Reactor Engineering Section I 2 here?

3 A Section head.

l 4 0 Do you supervise Mr. Thorpe?  !

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5 A Yes.  ;

6 Q How long have you been employed by Detroit  !

7 Edison?

8 -A Nine years.

9 0 Are you a degreed engineer? I 10 A Yes.

i 11 O What-- j i

12 A B. S. Mechanical. i 13 0 Do you have other nuclear experience?

14 A Yes.

15 0 Where?

16 A I worked in India for eleven years at Tarapur 17 , Atomic Power Station. i 18 0 When did you first become aware of the 19 out-of-sequence rod pull error that occurred in July 2nd?

20 A July 2nd, the morning. j i

l 21 O And how did you become aware of that?  ;)

4 22- A I went to the control room. l i

23 0 Who notified you of the error?

  • 24 A I read the log.

25 0 Which log? l l

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) WRBeb 1 A THe Reactor' Engineering log.

2 0 Did you ask thh, reactor engineer who lujged that, 3 Mt ..Myers, did you ask him about the incident?

4 'A He had left at'the change of' shift. .

5 , O He was alrdady off?

1 6 A- Yes .

7 0 What'was your reacti~on to having read the log? )

8 A I felt that the operator had pulled rods more 9 than what they are required to be pulled.

10 0 Did you assume from reading the Reactor 11 Engineering log that the plant had gone critical because of 12 the rod pull error?

l 13 A No, there was no determination made at that time 1

14 whether the reactor did go critical or not.

15 0 No, but the log states that the reactor had gone ]

16' critical. .

17 , A As you see, the-log has been changed. The. log 18 initially had-- Again, the information on criticality or 19 not was passed on to the shift nuclear engineer by STA in l i

20 training.

21 0 How often do the reactor engineers cross out an )

22 entry, or how often do they change their entries in the log?  !

23 A Normally it should not happen. 'There has been 24 one other incident. We do the thermal accumulation for the 25 day, and there'has been a time when that calculation is in '

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'394 01 04 5 WRBeb 1 error, and they have, been crossed out and new information i

2 added. J 3 0 Did you discuss this log entry with Mr. Myers at 4 a later date?

5 A Yes. Barry and I talked on July 2nd.

6 0 on the next shift when he came in?

7 A Yes.

4 8 0 What was the discussion?

9 A Basically the discussion was about where was l

10 Barry. Actually he explained where he was at the time he. '

11 was informed by the STA in training, and that is basically i

12 what he asserted to be what is in the log book.

13 0 Why did he make the change in this?

t' 14 A Why did he make the change? l l

15 0 Yes.

16 A I'm told by Barry Myers that that is the 17 information the STA in training wanted to convey to him, 18 that he did not mean the reactor went critical, he meant 1

19 that-- What exactly the words are, I can't tell you what  !

20 the words are. l 1

21 0 According to Mr. Myers, the STA in training gave 22 him the specific information that he logged originally into 23 this reactor engineer's log,--

24 A Yes.

25 0 --

specific as to what steps they went critical ACE FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.

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WRBeb 1 and the position of,the rods.

2 A So he told me. So Barry Myers told me.

3 0 So Mr. Myers didn't do any type.of evaluation on 4 his own?

5 A I understand no.

6 0 And then the STA in training came back later and 7 said that was incorrect?

8 A I don't know exactly as to what transpired in 9' time, the sequence.

10 0 Is this the reactor engineer's log or is'this the 11 STA in training's log?

12 A This is the reactor engineer's log.

13 'O Then why is the reactor engineer reporting what 14 the STA in training.is telling him rather than putting down 15 his own information? I mean shouldn't the reactor engineer l i

16 be cognizant of what is taking place rather than having-a l 1

17 , second party telling him what information.to put in his log?

18 A I can't answer that.

19 0 Well, normally is that the situation?

20 BY MR. LANG:

l 21 0 You asked Barry hyers where he'was. What did he 22 have to say? '

23 A As he indicated in the log, that he was sitting 24 on the reactor engineering desk, reviewing'the startup test i 25 phase engineering log.

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'394 Ol'06 7 WRBeb 1 There are, two dif ferent positions that BarryL l 1

2 Myers was working, one is called the. shift nuclear j i

3 engineer; the second is called the startup t.est phase.

4- 0 Which position was he doing on the shift? j 5 A Both. Our organization is set up-such that Barry 6 Myers was shift nuclear engineer and also that he was 7 startup test phase engineer.

8 0 Do all reactor engineers do the same thing? - j 9 A No.

i 10 0 Just Barry?  !

11 A Barry Myers and John Thorpe. )

l 12 0 Those two gentlemen?

13 A Yes.

I 14 BY MR. KALKMAN: i 15 0 When did you find out that Mr. Myers' original l 16 assessment was correct, that the reactor had in fact gone 17 , critical?

18 A I was called by John Thorpe at home on the 19 afternoon of July 4th.

20 0 By John Thorpe?

21 A By John Thorpe.

22 0 were you involved in the Reactor Engineering 23 review process to determine the criticality issue?

24 A To the extent that we did work on July 2nd, and  ;

25 we did have a meeting on July 3rd. The July 4th work was l

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WRBeb 1 done independently by.' John Thorpe.

2 0 How did ' Reactor Engineering get involved? Did i 3 Mr. Overbeck or someone direct or ask that you people 4 perform an analysis?

5 A Yes. That was as a result of disposition of DER  !

6 on July 2nd afternoon. Reactor Engineering was assigned l 7 responsibility for reviewing that incident. ,

i 8 0 Did you have some personal involvement in this 9 review process, or were your people taking care of it'for. I 10 you?

11 A I personally had involvement in it.

12 0 You had involvement in it?

13 A Yes.

14 0 What was th'e outcome of your analysis?

. A As the outcome of the analysis we had a meeting 16 on July 3rd.

17 0 July 3rd?

18 A Yes.

19 And that was in the morning of July 3rd. And in 20 the meeting we, Reactor Engineering, presented our findings 21 of the incident.

22 0 And what was the result? What were the findings?

f 23 A The finding was-- The final determination of was 24 criticality reached or.not was left undecided because it was 25 decided that we need to look at SRM recorder charts which l .

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W RBeb 1 shows actual rod movements time-wise. We did not have on .{ .

2 July 3rd those moves put together of the SRM logs. l 3 0 At the July 3rd. meeting didn't John Thorpe i

4 express his opinion that the reactor had gone critical?

i 5 A Yes.

  • 6 0 What did he base that opinion on?

7 A Based on the SRM logs. .

l 8 0 So Thorpe had looked at the SRM charts. ]

9 A Yes.

10 0 Then why did Reactor Engineering-have to do a i

11 second analysis?

12 A -Basically the reason being that you see the whole l 13 log rod pulls were done at such a short time interval that I 14 some people felt that it could be an indication of 15 suberitical multiplication rather.than actual criticality.

16 So that is why the direction was given to do that.

17 Q Did you personally agree with Mr. Thorpe that the 3 18 reactor had gone critical?

19 A No.

20 Q Did anyone else from Reactor Engineering agree t 1

21 with Mr. Thorpe? l i

22 A I don' t recall.

23 0 When you came to the meeting as a group, Reactor 24 Engineering, did you have -- had you conceptualized that the 25 reactor was in fact critical and, as a result of the l

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l WRBet . 1 meeting, you changed your mind and went back to do a second j l

2 analysis? i 3 A No, I had not made a final determination at the l

4 meeting of July 3rd.

5 Q And Mr. Thorpe had.

,6 Did anyone else in Reactor Engineering-- Who 7 else was at the meeting from your group? j 8 A Myself and John Thorpe from Reactor Engineering.  !

l 9 Q And who was the other dissenting party?

10 MR. MARQUARDT: Dissenting from whom?

11 MR. KALKMAN: From Reactc' Engineering.

12 MR. MARQUARDT: From Thorpe?

13 MR. KALKMAN: From Reacror Engineering.

14 THE WITNESS: Maybe you're talking aoout Mel l

15 Batch. Mel Batch is a member of Nuclear Fuel Engineering, 16 and not Reactor Engineering.

17 BY MR. KALKMAN:

18 0 Do you know if Mr. Thorpe discussed hir analysis 19 with Barry Myers?

20 A I'm not aware of whether he did or not.

21 0 Do you recall Mr. Lessor expressing his opinion 22 that he thought the reactor had gone critical?

23 A Yes.

24 0 Which concurs with-Mr. Thorpe?

25 A Yes. Leo's feeling was that the reactor had-gone J

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94 (- 10 11 I WRBeb 1 critical. ,

2- 0 Was there anyone else at the meeting on July 3rd 3 that expressed an opinion that the reactor had gone critical l

4 or had not gone critical?

5 A The one mentioned, Mel Batch. )

l 6 O Mel Batch. 1 I

7 A Yes.

<i 8 0 What.was his--

l l 9 A His feeling was no. d 10 Q Did you express a position or an opinion at that' [

11 meeting? j 1

12 A No. l 13 0 Were you told at the July 3rd meeting that 14 Detroit Edison's position was that the reactor had not gone j 15 critical?

16 A No.

17 0 Did you get that impression from the meeting'that 18 that's what the company position was?

19 A No.

20 I think I remember Mr. Lenart saying that it is l 1

21 not clear whether it is critical or not critical, and'we 22 need to do more work on it. But there was no Detroit Edison 23 position saying that the reactor did not go critical.

24 I'm speaking from what Mr. Lenart said.

25 O Shortly or some time after the July 3rd meeting

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, 194 01 11 12 4

WRBeb 1 on the same date, July 3rd, did you receive a phone call '

2 from the NRC resident inspector, Mike Parker?  !

3 A On. July 3rd afternoon, I was in the control room 4' when Gene Preston, the_ operations engineer, told me that 5 Mike Parker wants to talk to me. .

6- Q And you called Parker?

7 A That's right.

8 Q And what questions did he have?

9 A His question was whether the reactor did go 10 critical as a final determination. I said a final determination had not been made, that we have been asked to 12 do more work to confirm that.

13 The second question was the shif t nuclear 14 engineer, he said " reactor engineer" but he meant " nuclear 15 engineer," was he in the control room. I said yes he was in  ;

16 l' the control room, but he was not in the control area.

17 0 Was that the extent of the conversation?

18 A I can't think of anything else.

19 I did ask him if he wanted to talk to Barry 20 Myers, and he said No.

21 Q So you advised Mr. Parker that you could not make 22 the determination whether I- at that point whether the 23 reactor was critical.

24 A I told him we had been given action 'to perform 25 more work.

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l ' '94 01 12 13 WRBeb 1 O Did he ask you to get back to him when you had 2 the results?  ;

3 A No.

4 BY MR. LANG:

5 0 Did you discuss the event at all with anybody on l

6 shift?

7 A Myself?

8 0 Yes.

9 A On the shift? Yes. ,

10 John and I talked to \thereactor 11 operator, on July 1st. e l 12 0 On July 1st.

'l 13 Did you do anything on the 3rd?  !

14 A No. I talked with people on the same shift. I 15 We're talking about the July 1st shift? l

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16 0 No. l k

17 , Actually on July 3rd, the night of July 3rd, did )

18 you go up to the control room and discuss the 1

19 out-of-sequence events with anybody?

20 A No.

21 0 Did John Thorpe?

l 22 A I don't know.

23 BY MR. KALKMAN:

24 0 What about the 2nd, July 2nd, the evening of July 25 2nd, the shift following the event, the rod pull sequence A

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2 A I have talked t<f on July 2nd night at i 3 11:30 when he came on shift.L / I 4 BY MR. LANG:

5 0 Was that in the control room? '

6 A No, it was in the office next to the shift

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7 supervisor. I 8 BY MR. KALKMAN:

9 0 And what was your discussion?

i 10 A Basically John was there, and myself. My 11 objective was to find out from him as to what really 12 happened concerning the rod pull.

13 0 And what did he tell you? )

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, 14 A Well, he said that it was misleading on this i 15 part, that it was an error on his part to pull the rods  !

I 16 .instead of 00 to 04, he pulled them to 0014.

17 ,

BY MR. LANG:

18 0 So neither on the 2nd, late on the 2nd, nor on i 19 the 3rd, you never met with the reactor engineer on shift.?

20 A I met Barry Myers on July 2nd.

l 21 O In the control room? l 22 A Yes.

23 BY MR. KALKMAN: l y-24 0 '

IsthatthesametimethatyoutalkedtoL 25

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94 01 14 15 l W RBeb 1 A Yes.- John was there., Barry Myers was there.

2 0 Did [ )tell you that he thought j the u j 3 reactor went critical?

4 A No, I don' t recall. No, I don't recall him l

l 5 saying that. .

e i 6 0 Did you mention to that Reactor J \

7 Engineering may have some thoughts on whether the plant had l 1

8 gone critical or the reactor had gone critical?

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9 A No, I don't think we said that. I think we told r

10 that we were doing this talking as a result of the DER, l 11 Tb he understands why we're talking to him.

12 There was no mention made at that time that the .

13 reactor did go critical or not go critical.

14 0 The actions that \took once he

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15 discovered that he had mispulled the rods, was that typical?

16 The fact that he immediately started to reinset the rods 17 ,

that he had mispulled, is that the type of action that he 18 would have taken if he had not been critical? I 19 A I don' t know. I can't say. g 20 0 Well, if he had not been critical he could have 21 just stopped his -- what he was doing and analyzed the j 22 situation rather than reinserting the rods. Correct?

23 A I can't say for him.

24 0 Shouldn't he have contacted the reactor engineer 25 first before he started taking corrective action, before he

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(. 94.01 15 16- I WRBeb 1 started reinserting .the rods?.

2 A I would say yes.

3 0 After your telephone conversation with  !

4 Mr. Parker, did you have any subsequent conversations with 5 Mr. Parker?

  • I l

6 A Yes.

7 Q When were they?

8 A July 5th, in the cafeteria.

9 Q What was that discussion?

10 A I told him.that we are going to have a meeting j 11 this afternoon to discuss the further analysis which w~e have 12 made on the incident.

13 0 And did you tell him what your analysis was at

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14 that point?

15 A No. )

16 0 You didn't tell him it had gone critical?

17 A No.

18 0 Did he ask?

'1 19 A No.

20 0 was he interested? Did he seem interested?

21 A I can't make any comment.whether he was 22 interested or not. i 1

23 0 Okay. 1 1

24 You related to him that a meeting was to take I place, and that meeting was where your group would make a 25 l

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.WRBeb- 1 presentation indicating that the reactor was in fact 2 critical.

3 A Yes, that's right.

4 0 Did Mr. Parker attend that meeti.ng?

No.

5 A 6 0 Did you have any discussions with Mr. Parker 7 after that meeting?

8 A No.

Do you know if Mr. Parker contacted anyone else 9 Q 10 in your group?

11 A I'm not aware of it.

12 O Mr. Arora, the STA log of July 3rd indicates that 13 you had -- yourself and John Thorpe had conducted a I l

14 debriefing apparently of the shif t personnel relating to the 15 previous night's criticality, j 16 A July 2nd I mentioned before.

17 ,

BY MR. LANG:

18 0 That was on shift then up in control?

19 A No.

20 BY MR. KALKMAN:

21 0 You went around and individually discussed the 22 matter with these people?

23 A No. I, with John Thorpe, were in the office next 24 to the shift supervisor. I did not go into the control 25 room, was the one we were talking to. I i

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WRBeb 1 remember John Dooz came in, and the SOA on shift. He was in 2 there, too.

3 0- Mr. Arora, have I or any other NRC representative 4 here threat'ened you in any manner, or offered you any 5 ' rewards in return for this statement?

l 6 A No.

7 0 Have you given the statement freely and  !

.l l 8 voluntarily?

1 9 A Yes.

10 0 Is there anything further you. care to add'for the 1'

11 record?

12 A No.

13 0 okay. Thank you.

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14 (Whereupon, at 4:55 p.m., the interview was 15 concluded.)

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18 l 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 1

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i CERTIFICATE OF OFFICIAL REPORTER

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l This is to certify that the attached proceedings before the UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION in the  !

matter of:

NAME OF PROCEEDING: INVESTIGATIVE INTERVIEW OF HARI ARORA i I

i l

DOCKET NO.:

PLACE: NEWPORT, MICHIGAN t

DATE: TUESDAY, AUGUST 20, 1985 were held as herein appears, and that this is the original transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Comunission.

<.-a);#629?/

! TYPED)

WILLIAM R. BLOOM Official Reporter ACE _ FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.

Reporter's Affiliation

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