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This 2006 gas explosion killed two people in their Wylie home.

NEWS 8 INVESTIGATES

It was one year ago that a Wylie couple died when their house exploded in the middle of the night.

The official finding was that natural gas leaked under their home and ignited.

At the time the state investigation closed…ours was just beginning.

Over the past year, News 8 amassed hundreds of documents and spent countless hours to unearth the truth.

Our finding: Tens of thousands of north Texas lives may be at risk.

Lives... like those of Benny and Martha Cryer of Wylie, Texas.

On October 16, 2006, they were blown out of their bed when natural gas leaked under their house and mysteriously ignited.  They were trapped under debris that was starting to catch fire.

Investigators with the state's oil and gas regulatory agency, the Texas Railroad Commission, were on the scene within hours.  They were quick to discover natural gas had leaked into the Cryer's home from a pipe that had pulled out of its fitting beneath the gas meter in the alley.

This past March, the Railroad Commission's official findings were released.  It said "the service line separated from its compression coupling" and the escaping gas had "migrated through the soil" and ignited inside the Cryer's house a few yards away.

Railroad Commission Safety Director Mary McDaniel notified Atmos Energy of the findings, thanked them for "their assistance" and proclaimed it to be a "favorable report."

The only probable cause mentioned was "possible damage" to the gas line during "third party activity".

In other words, another utility — not Atmos — may have been responsible.

The Railroad Commission's case was closed.

Benny and Martha Cryer died in a house explosion.

But neighbors are shocked no one is being held responsible for the Cryers' deaths. 

"Nobody deserves to die like that," said next door neighbor Pam Willey.  She watched in horror that night as the Cryers burned to death in the rubble of their home. 

"To treat it as it's something they can brush off is inconceivable, immoral and unethical and quite frankly unacceptable," she said.

According to pipeline engineer Don Deaver of Houston, Willey's outrage is justified.

Deaver was a pipeline safety expert for Exxon for 33 years and is familiar with compression coupling failures.

After reviewing the state's report at our request, Deaver says he believes no real investigation was ever done.  

"They didn't do any forensic work on the coupling itself," said Deaver.  "They should have taken it and pulled it apart and at least opened it up to see what's in it."

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Photo shows mud caked on the gas line coupling.

But photographs taken after the report was released show mud still caked on the coupling that failed, meaning it was never inspected by the state.

Not only did investigators fail to inspect the fitting, Deaver says there's no mention of the coupling's legacy of failure.

The non-restraint, compression coupling, installed in the 50s, 60s and 70s are still connecting gas pipes under tens of thousands of older North Texas homes.

Unlike newer fittings that lock in place, the non-restraint coupling's only method of gripping the pipe is a rubber seal holding it in place.

Deaver says the fitting has a tendency to fail when the notoriously elastic North Texas soil expands, contracts and pulls on a pipe.

On file with the Texas Railroad Commission, memos dating back to the early 1980s from respected institutions such as National Transportation Safety Board and the American Gas Association.  The bulletins and notifications warn gas companies nationwide of the potential for "pullouts" and the "coupling's limitations".

Why? Because people were being killed and injured all over the country.

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A rubber seal is designed to hold the pipe in place.

The coupling that leaked and killed the Cryers was installed in 1979 by the Lone Star Gas, the company that used to own the current Atmos Energy system.

In a 1980 letter to the coupling manufacturer, Rockwell International, warned Lone Star officials that the couplings "will not meet... Federal Regulations".

But replacing them would be expensive, costing tens — if not hundreds — of millions of dollars.

The potentially faulty couplings were left in the ground.

When they failed, some north Texans began paying with their lives.

A house explosion in Keller in 1980 left one dead.

Three were injured in an explosion in Arlington in 1998.

In 2000: one dead, one injured in a house explosion in North Richland Hills.

Four were badly burned in an explosion west Dallas in 2001.

The Cryers died when their house exploded in 2006.

Then, on May 29 of this year, two months after the Railroad Commission vindicated Atmos Energy in the Wylie explosion report, another house explosion.   This time it happened in Cleburne, Texas.

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Hazel Pawlick and Hazel Sanderson died in a Cleburne house explosion in May.

Hazel Pawlick and her daughter, Hazel Sanderson, were killed.

Three others suffered serious burns.

The cause:  A leaking compression coupling beneath the street on an Atmos pipe.

Atmos says it spent nearly $100 million last year alone on repairs to damaged gas lines and on maintenance.

Atmos Energy officials say the couplings are safe and that a water utility is to blame for knocking them loose in the Wylie incident.  

Our question to state officials is this:  With more than 100,000 potentially deadly couplings still in the ground, why have they been reluctant to act?  Getting answers from Railroad Commissioners in Austin has been difficult.

Over the past year, we have been told repeatedly that the Commission Chairman Michael Williams would not comment.

Safety Director Mary McDaniel says she stands by her final report and that there's no need to assume the couplings are not safe.

The Cryers' neighbors say for the state to ignore an ongoing problem with potential deadly consequences, is not acceptable.  "Who's minding the store?" asked Willey.

"Who cares about the lives of these people? How many Texans die before somebody cares?”

E-mail bshipp@wfaa.com