Rockwell Expected to Plead Guilty in ’94 Blast

Rockwell International is expected to plead guilty Monday to several federal felony charges and agree to pay fines for the 1994 chemical blast that killed two of its scientists at the firm’s Santa Susana field lab, sources have told The Times.

Rockwell spokesman Bill Blanning refused to comment on the case Friday, as did officials with the FBI, Cal/OSHA and the U.S. attorney’s office.

But Carol Levitsky, U.S. attorney spokeswoman, confirmed that her office will “make an announcement” Monday regarding the 21-month investigation.

And sources close to the investigation said this week that Rockwell officials have agreed to settle the charges without a trial by admitting guilt and paying fines for the July 26, 1994, explosion deaths of physicists Otto K. Heiney and Larry A. Pugh.

Also, the sources said, U.S. prosecutors will continue to show a federal grand jury evidence that could be used to lodge civil and criminal indictments against Rocketdyne officials who oversaw the Santa Susana Field Laboratory where the men died.

Sources close to the case have said the prosecution has focused hard on apparent violations of environmental and work-safety laws, and also on whether Rocketdyne defrauded the U.S. government of millions of dollars over the past several years by simply burning hazardous waste that the firm was paid to dispose of properly.

Heiney, 53, and Pugh, 51, were killed instantly at a test stand in Rocketdyne’s rocky 2,700-acre field lab known as “Happy Valley” when rocket fuel ingredients they were working with blew up in their faces.

Rocketdyne President Paul Smith said the two were using highly explosive nitrocellulose, glycidal azide polymer and guanidine triamino nitrate.

Smith said the men were igniting the materials and measuring the blast waves, or “overpressure waves” emitted during the explosion, as part of a legitimate experiment.

But Cal/OSHA investigators said in a report that the two appeared not to be running valid tests, but blowing up the chemicals to get rid of them.

And one investigative source confirmed that the blasts were nothing but “bucket tests,” company slang for tests of no real scientific value designed for surreptitious disposal of hazardous chemicals.

Federal investigators have been preparing their case against Rockwell and its Canoga Park-based Rocketdyne division for some time before July 13. That was the day about 20 agents from the FBI, NASA, EPA and U.S. departments of Defense, Energy, Air Force and Navy raided Rocketdyne headquarters and offices at the field lab and seized reams of environmental records.

About two weeks later, the families of Pugh and Heiney slapped Rockwell with wrongful-death lawsuits. The parties settled the suits out of court in February for undisclosed amounts and other concessions to be made to the victims’ families.

Meanwhile, Cal/OSHA had completed its own probe. In January 1995, the state workplace safety agency fined Rocketdyne more than $202,500 for violating state laws.

Cal/OSHA investigators found that Rocketdyne had:

* Failed to separate work stations enough to prevent explosives at one station from being set off by material at another.

* Failed to set up an education program with specific explosives-hazard training and failed to inspect new hazards.

* Processed and blended static-sensitive explosives in 17% humidity when regulations called for at least 20% humidity.

* Tested potentially explosive chemicals beside a site where material was burned in an earlier test without waiting the required 48 hours to make sure the fire was completely out.

* Failed to inform the state in advance about the work that led to the explosion.

Cal/OSHA inspectors said they saw none of the measuring devices necessary for such tests to yield valid data. Said the agency’s report: ‘The manner in which the tests were set up and performed appeared to be a disguise for destroying waste explosive materials.”