Qualla: Aracoma Alma Mine accident

Aracoma Alma Mine accident: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Don Bragg was 33 years old. Ellery Hatfield was 47. They were among 12 miners working inside the Aracoma Alma Mine No. 1 near Melville, in Logan County, West Virginia, on the morning of January 19, 2006, when a conveyor belt caught fire underground. The two men became separated from the rest of their crew in the smoke. Their ten coworkers held hands and edged out through the air intake passage that was supposed to stay smoke-free. Bragg and Hatfield did not make it. They died of carbon monoxide poisoning because two ventilation walls — each 18 feet long and six feet high — were not where the mine map said they should be.

Aracoma Alma Mine accident: The Belt Fire

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Conveyor belts move coal from the working face out of the mine. They run on rollers under tension, they generate friction, and they are flammable. The belt in the Aracoma Alma No. 1 ignited that morning and began pouring dense smoke into the surrounding rooms. The mine's ventilat...

Aracoma Alma Mine accident: Sago, Then This

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Aracoma happened in a brutal month for West Virginia coal mining. The Sago Mine disaster in Upshur County had killed twelve miners only nineteen days earlier, on January 2, 2006, and the country was already watching. The Aracoma Coal Company, which owned the mine, was a subsidiar...

Aracoma Alma Mine accident: The Widows Speak

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

On January 15, 2009, the Charleston Gazette reported that Delorice Bragg and Freda Hatfield had asked Federal District Judge John T. Copenhaver to reject Massey Energy's plea bargain. The $2.5 million criminal fine was, at the time, the largest ever for a mine safety violation. T...

Aracoma Alma Mine accident: A Course in Their Names

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

On July 11, 2014, the Bragg and Hatfield families settled a Federal Tort Claims Act lawsuit against the U.S. government for $1 million. The settlement included unusual nonmonetary terms. The Mine Safety and Health Administration agreed to create a course at the National Mine Safe...