Statistics of accidents and incidents on main gas pipelines in recent years indicate that almost half of the technogenic events occur due to depressurization in the area of annular welded joints, mainly joints containing defects made during construction and installation work during the construction of gas pipelines. The assessment of the degree of danger and the timing of external inspection and repair or replacement of defective annular welded joints largely depends on the quality of non-destructive testing, the correct identification of the types of defects and the objective determination of their geometric dimensions. To increase the reliability of the assessment of the degree of danger of the detected defects, it is necessary to use additional control methods, in particular, destructive ones. The paper presents the results of surveys and tests of metal fragments of annular welded joints of main gas pipelines containing transverse cracks of annular welded joints in order to determine the causes of the formation of these defects and to assess the degree of danger of the detected transverse cracks of the installation welds of main gas pipelines.