Refrain From Refueling, Please

Officials on Monday asked airlines not to refuel their planes at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport after a weekend explosion shut down the 400-mile pipeline system that delivers the airport’s jet fuel.

“We’ve asked the airlines to, when possible, fly in here with enough fuel on board to get to their next destination,” airport spokesman Bob Parker said.

Workers at Olympic Pipe Line Co.’s pumping station in the south Seattle suburb of Renton heard an explosion Sunday morning and saw 20-foot flames leaping from a small stainless steel test line that runs off the main pipeline. The fire was put out in about three hours.

No one was injured, though three firefighters were checked at a hospital after fuel splashed on them.

Between 3,300 and 10,000 gallons of fuel leaked from the three-quarter-inch line, and much of it burned, Olympic President Bobby Talley said Monday. Officials found a pin-size hole in the line, but didn’t know what caused it or the fire.

Company officials were checking similar installations throughout the system to make sure no other problems were occurring.

Olympic’s pipeline system moves 12 million gallons of gasoline, diesel fuel and jet fuel through western Washington every day, from refineries at Cherry Point, north of Bellingham, and March Point, near Anacortes, to as far south as Portland, Ore.

A rupture of the main pipeline in 1999 at Bellingham killed three people.

As a precaution, company officials shut down the entire system after Sunday’s explosion. Talley said Monday night that the company hopes to complete repairs and restart the line by late today.

“This is an isolated incident. It’s not an integrity issue with the main line,” he said. “We’re taking every safety precaution necessary to ensure we understand what the problem is.”