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on the Deepwater Horizon accident
Jun. 1st, 2010 11:35 pmIf you have iTunes, you should listen to the May 16th 2010 edition of the audio podcast for CBS's 60 Minutes. Here's the iTunes link to that podcast -- just look for the May 16th episode on the Deepwater Horizon:
http://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/60-minutes-full-audio/id81210923
More background with some transcripts are available here:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/05/16/60minutes/main6490197.shtml
It's a truly shocking story that I haven't heard told in the regular media aside from this show. Essentially, an electrical engineer who was successfully rescued from the rig described how, in the days leading up to the disaster, the BOP was damaged significantly through a simple human error (some pipe was thrust through it or something, breaking the rubber seal and sending many pieces of rubber up the pipes to the rig).
However, while SOP would normally completely see the rig's operations completely shut down while that mission-critical piece of equipment was repaired, it was decided by the rig's managers (but ultimately by BP, I surmise) that operations would continue due to the staggering deadlines that had been missed by that rig thus far. Then when the fateful accident occurred, the BOP was out of commission and we arrived where we are today.
If you have some time to listen to the whole segment in that podcast, it's really shocking and moving at the same time. I hope that a suitable investigation gets to the bottom of this and that the right heads will roll as a result. I have a certain amount of confidence in the safety practices of deep water drilling operations such that they would normally not operate when such an important piece of equipment was out of commission, but I'm relying on the rig managers to make the right decisions in that circumstance. If this survivor's story is correct, then there wasn't some mysterious malfunction with the BOP -- it was just fucking broken in the days leading up to the accident!
Also, FYI, here's a link to a live feed from BP's remote-operated vehicles at the well head:
http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/homepage/STAGING/local_assets/bp_homepage/html/rov_stream.html
http://itunes.apple.com/ca/
More background with some transcripts are available here:
http://www.cbsnews.com/
It's a truly shocking story that I haven't heard told in the regular media aside from this show. Essentially, an electrical engineer who was successfully rescued from the rig described how, in the days leading up to the disaster, the BOP was damaged significantly through a simple human error (some pipe was thrust through it or something, breaking the rubber seal and sending many pieces of rubber up the pipes to the rig).
However, while SOP would normally completely see the rig's operations completely shut down while that mission-critical piece of equipment was repaired, it was decided by the rig's managers (but ultimately by BP, I surmise) that operations would continue due to the staggering deadlines that had been missed by that rig thus far. Then when the fateful accident occurred, the BOP was out of commission and we arrived where we are today.
If you have some time to listen to the whole segment in that podcast, it's really shocking and moving at the same time. I hope that a suitable investigation gets to the bottom of this and that the right heads will roll as a result. I have a certain amount of confidence in the safety practices of deep water drilling operations such that they would normally not operate when such an important piece of equipment was out of commission, but I'm relying on the rig managers to make the right decisions in that circumstance. If this survivor's story is correct, then there wasn't some mysterious malfunction with the BOP -- it was just fucking broken in the days leading up to the accident!
Also, FYI, here's a link to a live feed from BP's remote-operated vehicles at the well head:
http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/homepage/STAGING/local_assets/bp_homepage/html/rov_stream.html
