NTSB Posting Documents on West Virginia Pipeline Blast

Federal investigators are releasing more than 1,400 pages of documents about a natural gas pipeline explosion in Sissonville, W.Va., but they won’t reveal the cause.

The National Transportation Safety Board said Thursday’s document dump will contain interview transcripts, photos and other facts collected during the continuing investigation.

They say conclusions about the December explosion will come when the final investigation report is finished.

A 20-inch transmission line owned by Columbia Gas Transmission ruptured Dec. 11, 2012, near Interstate 77.

The blast hurled a 20-foot section of pipe more than 40 feet.

No one was killed or seriously injured. But the explosion and resulting fireball destroyed several homes and cooked a stretch of turnpike.

Preliminary investigation found the decades-old pipe had corroded, losing 70 percent of its original thickness.