A survivor of the Stockline factory explosion that claimed the lives of nine people and injured more than 40 thought that the building had been hit by an aircraft, the opening day of a public inquiry into the disaster was told yesterday.

The blast at the plastics factory in the Maryhill area of Glasgow on May 11, 2004, was the worst industrial accident in Scotland since the Piper Alpha oil platform exploded and caught fire in 1988.

Stockline's owners, ICL Plastics and ICL Tech, were fined £400,000 at the High Court in Glasgow last year after admitting health and safety breaches.

The court was told that the explosion that destroyed the factory was caused by liquid petroleum gas leaking from a corroding pipe installed in 1969. It could have been replaced for only £405.

About a dozen family members and friends of the victims, as well as legal representatives from the ICL group and the Health and Safety Executive attended the first day of the inquiry. Before proceedings began, Lord Gill, the Lord Justice Clerk, who is chairing the inquiry, called for a minute's silence.

Witness statements from five workers were read out by Kenny McBrearty, junior counsel for the inquiry. In one, David Andrews, who worked for the company for 12 years, said that he was working in a separate building when he heard the blast and told a colleague to get outside.

He said: “The big sliding doors of our building buckled. Initially we did not see anything for the dust. I then saw the building had collapsed. I thought maybe a plane had hit the building.”

In his evidence Mr Andrews also described how he saw colleagues coming out covered in dust and a female worker screaming and crying.

The inquiry is being held at a specially refurbished community hall in Maryhill, close to the scene of blast, a decision that was criticised by some involved in the accident.

As the hearing began yesterday, other victims questioned the value of the hearing itself.

Linda Kinnon, who was one of the last to be rescued, said the inquiry was unnecessary as the company that owned the plastics factory has already admitted health and safety breaches.

In a BBC Scotland interview, Mrs Kinnon, 55, from Erskine, said: “I just don't know what people will get from this, going back through the whole accident, the trauma and everything again.

“It has all come out at the court case and the company has admitted liability so I don't know what kind of closure you will get from this.”

Mrs Kinnon spent nine hours under the rubble before she was pulled to safety. She has undergone several operations and faces a further two years of surgery. She said: “The flashbacks and bad dreams, nightmares and everything will start all over again.”

Other survivors felt that the hearing would help. Sheena O'Brien, who was badly injured in the blast and lost her father, wrote in a statement: “I want to know what happened that day and be able to obtain closure for me, my colleague and of course my family, through a fair inquiry.”

Katie Lambeth, the sister of Thomas McAulay, who died in the blast, said it would be a chance for the families to remind the public that their loved ones were more than a statistic from an industrial accident.

“Everybody talks about nine people, but it was nine family members,” she said. “My brother was 41 years old. The month before he died he'd announced his engagement; he had two brilliant little kids; he had three sisters and two brothers; he was a good guy. That is the side that people never see and that is the side we want to get across.”

The first part of the hearing is expected to last for 12 weeks and will focus on the causes of the explosion. The second stage, in October, will run for three weeks and examine the lessons that can be learnt.

Transcriptions of the proceedings will be published on the internet within an hour of each session, and video evidence will be streamed to television screens installed in the Maryhill Community Hall.

While the inquiry has no power to determine criminal or civil liability, Lord Gill said that it would allow the “pursuit of the truth”.

He added: “It's not at all clear that everything came out at the prosecution and there's a very good reason for that.

“Prosecutors were concerned with statutory offences to which the companies pled guilty. Therefore all the prosecution was concerned with were the facts relating to the commission of those offences.”

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