Noxious Fumes Hospitalize 120

The Boeing Co. fabrication division was shut down Friday because of a hazardous chemical reaction in which 120 people were taken to hospitals.

A billow of noxious fumes arose about 9:30 a.m. as about 300 gallons of mixed nitric and hydrofluoric acid was being piped from a portable tank in the 1768 Building, the Emergent Manufacturing Facility, to a waste treatment tank outside, said Tom Koehler, a division spokesman.

Cause of the reaction remained undetermined. Koehler said he did not know when the waste tank or pipe had last been used, what substances had been in them or when they were last flushed.

The acid apparently was used as a cleaning agent in an area where spare parts for airplanes are made, Koehler said.

The division has a normal work force of about 8,000 people but is down to about 2,300 because of a company-wide Machinists union strike that began Oct. 6. Roughly 50 were in the area where the reaction occurred, compared with 200 to 300 normally, Koehler said.

Union pickets at seven gates, one within 200 yards of the scene, fled immediately when they saw fumes spewing from the building, said picket captain Jerry Smith, a maintenance and facility services worker.