***Air and H2 in the generator during a purge procedure blew up.***
Good grief! Don’t they have a checklist to go by for this procedure? Did the sealing oil also catch on fire?
There is no excuse for purging H2 with air!
No kidding!
http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/b0d1c9dfd78d41258a2ddd48cf209953/GA—Power-Plant-Explosion
There are other stories that say the same thing if you google “Bowen explosion purge”. We had pictures of the damaged generator at our plant, our #2 generator is a Westinghouse very similar to the one that exploded.