Don Blankenship: 'Accidents Sometimes Happen'

4/6/10: Soon after a mine explosion killed 29 miners, Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship touts his company's safety record as being "18 of the last 20 years we've been safer than the industry average" in an interview with the Associated Press. He claimed that he has "proven that we run safer coal mines most of the time," but "accidents sometimes happen."

Transcript:
BLANKENSHIP: I know, and uh am comfortable that as managers we do everything we can do uh not only to meet the law but well beyond the law. And uh, you know, it's really unfortunate that this happened, we don't know why it happened. You know, we'll be trying to figure that out like we should.
...
In 18 of the last 20 years we've been safer than the industry average so we were well on our way to 19 out of 21. I think I've proven that we run, you know, safer coal mines, you know, most of the time. And accidents sometimes happen. We've gotta figure out what happened here.

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