John Upton/The Bay Citizen

NTSB Chairwoman Deborah Hersman outlines flaws in a stretch of PG&E-owned gas pipeline that ruptured beneath San Bruno in 2010, killing eight people

Pacific Gas & Electric Corp. said Tuesday that it will accept full responsibility for the deadly 2010 San Bruno pipeline explosion. 

Dozens of victims of the blast, which killed eight people and destroyed 38 homes, have filed suit against the utility. The utility has told a San Mateo County Superior Court judge it is liable for the rupture.

“We would never consider holding the residents accountable for this accident,” PG&E President Chris Johns said Tuesday in a blog post on PG&E's website. "We are taking on financial responsibility so that everyone injured in the accident will be able to recover all of their damages from PG&E."

PG&E formerly tried to pin blame for the disaster on San Bruno, saying a sewer project in 2008 weakened the utility's gas transmission pipeline. But National Transportation Safety Board investigators rejected that argument.

"It didn’t play any role," NTSB investigator Donald Kramer said during an Aug. 30 hearing in Washington, D.C. "We've looked at this sewer replacement project in great detail and we cannot make it work -- we cannot find a scenario in which it would have damaged the pipe."

In the following short video, the NTSB chairwoman discusses the flaws investigators uncovered in the San Bruno pipeline: