This paper describes the fracture analysis of a seamless steel compressed gas container which burst at a reported pressure of 17.3 MPa (2500 psi) during filling. Design burst pressure was about 35.2 MPa (5100 psi). The container was made of a quenched and tempered carbon-manganese steel with yield and tensile strengths of 517 and 687 MPa (75 000 and 99 800 psi), respectively. The vessel had been in service for about 6 months and had been filled perhaps twice before it burst. The fracture origin was a pair of part-through cracks in a gouged region on the outside surface. fracture at the origin was ductile and the fast fracture was also ductile. The empirical methodology developed at Battelle-Columbus for analyzing the burst of line pipe was utilized to analyze the ductile fracture initiation of this compressed gas container. K_c, J_IC and K_Ic were estimated for this carbon-manganese pressure vessel steel.