My lovely brother lost his life on this platform, he was 23 years old. He wasn't meant to be there, it wasn't even the rig he worked on normally, he was filling in for a trip. He was asked at short notice to go and didn't really want to but it's hard to not help out if you want the same courtesy back so he went. He was brought back in a lead box and identified by his teeth. We finally laid him to rest on the 5th of november, 4 months after the explosion. I thank all those involved in fire fighting,rescue and the workers involved after in every field for their hard and distressing work. This should never have happened.

My friend Carl Busse was on the Piper. He was the Directional Drilling Engineer, and also the only American to die in the disaster. He was from Navasota , Texas, and was a great guy

You missed some details: - the emergency procedures stated to NEVER jump from the platform because you would die from impact, or from hypothermia. This is why the 87 people stayed in the accommodation block. The majority of survivors were ones who ignored that and jumped - the oil rig was not designed to handle gas, the fire resistant walls were only fire resistant, not explosion proof - the other oil rigs continued to pump gas to piper for hours despite seeing the fire, out of fear of being fired. They only stopped when one operator ignored commands from a superior and shut it down

My late step-father Hamish was the medical examiner at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary when this happened, he was the guy who determined the cause of death. He didn’t talk about the Piper Alpha often, but when he did he told me it was the reason he stopped being an ME, that a lot of the bodies weren’t intact, and it left him with PTSD, horrible depression and alcoholism. Any time I visit Hazlehead Park I go to the Piper Alpha memorial, I think of Hamish. He eventually took his life at 56, it was just too much to live with. If anyone is ever up this way visiting Aberdeen I’d recommend visiting Hazlehead, it’s a beautiful memorial.

This is why a lock-out system exists. They should have been unable to start the pump regardless of incompetence and paperwork.

I served in the British Army with a guy who’s father jumped off one of the highest parts on the rig and survived, rescuers were amazed how he survived the jump, I’d take my chance jumping against being burnt to death any day, another colleague was from the Shetlands and he told me that he saw a fire rescue boat come into harbour, when he was a teenager, a day or so after the disaster, the paint had blistered and cracked along the hull, such was the heat. RIP to all those who lost their lives that awful night.

My friend Andy Kiloh was on it, he was in a coma, he should have died but made a miraculous recovery, not without long term health issues. He was retired due to this. With a huge pay out he could live his life out without worrying where is pennies will come from. Such a tragedy.

My father was a compression diver working in the North Sea and told me the story of how he was on the Piper Alpha days before this happened. Not only that, during the 80's he was a diving supervisor and the absolute cowboy approach the oil & gas companies had back then was nothing short of gung ho, he still has all his little black books from the time, shocking. Thanks for retelling these stories, lest we forget that these large companies will treat us like nothing more than grist for the mill given half a chance. Profit is king, we are seen as expendable.

Thanks for your video, I'm glad people remember. I lost my dad in this disaster and I can always remember seeing that first tv image. Unfortunately, he was one of the 30 never recovered. There's so much about that diabolical platform and night that can still bring out the rage in me 35 years later.

When I was in the Navy and taking safety training, I took a class called trace barrier analysis, and this was used to show how one step can cause an accident or prevent one.

The the lad shown at the end of this video was a mate of mine, Davy Elliot. He jumped and survived. For the rest of his life he was a bitter about it and when we were out drinking he always said he would never trust anyone in authority again. He never worked after the disaster. This tragic loss of life reshaped the North Sea oil Industry and brought about huge changes in safety. It was a tragedy beyond words. RIP to all those who perished.

I worked for the dive company (2W Taylor) who had the contract on Piper A when this happened. Thankfully I was on leave when it happened. It was one of the "best dive assignments" in the North sea diving business at the time. Piper A was unique. One of the most productive platforms in all of the North Sea, OXY drilled the heck out of the oil field. They added more drilling capacity to the platform than any other in the world for it's size and design. Way too much in fact. The platform jacket was super stressed and began to fail. It had cracked members everywhere. The documentary talks about the huge diving platform and that was accurate. No other platform in the North Sea had anything like this. There was a full time repair program ongoing for years. We installed massive custom made clamps on every joint and node. So much NDT work looking for structural cracks and so much clamping and repairing. It was the best full time job for any diver and a very coveted gig. A fantastic learning assignment back in the day. Oxy drilled the thing to near destruction. The drilling power was immense and the torsional stresses created by the huge power of the drilling gear twisted and loaded the structure like no other. It was all about production no matter what happened. 2W Taylor also supplied divers to help recover the accommodation module from the seabed and onshore in Orkney due to divers ability to use breathing equipment (SCBA), cutting gear and in general just do whatever needed done. God bless all those involved and their families in dealing with this horrible event.

My father had just finished working on the rigs when this happened. He said many times the men in the industry all said that the Pipa Alpha would be the next big disaster for years before it happened.

My Wife & I were married at Morpeth Registry Office on the 28th May 1988. The newly wedded couple that were married ahead of us were tragically separated when the husband was killed a few weeks later in this disaster. Always remember the happy look on both of their faces as they passed us wishing us both good luck for the future and us wishing them the same.

My Grandad worked on this oil rig as, I've been told, a maintenance diver, he was on shore leave in Glasgow at the time when the rig exploded and had to watch all his friends die on TV. Was quite messed up, sadly I never got the chance to ask him about his work there but, I've always been interested about it. Its great to hear essentially what his role was while he worked there. After the incident he never went back into the sea ever again.

Back in 92 i was working for a company called Trolex, they made safety systems for the coal and oil industry, after the Piper Alpha tragedy there was steps put into place to stop this ever happening again, i was on the team at Trolex to prototype several projects directly attributed to the Piper, my main project was the developement of a lighting system that was installed into the accomodation block,it would stay illuminated for hours after power was lost,and it would also keep illuminated at depth,i have to say that the thought of those poor souls who lost their lives drove me,regularly i think about them still to this day,i hope their family's are at peace with what happened that night,RIP guys.

I well remember this; even here in the US it was huge news. The "error cascade" is so common to these sort of disasters... it's not just one thing going wrong; it's a whole sequence of events, each of which were manageable... but sometimes the holes line up in the Swiss cheese. The term "Piper Alpha" is as permanently emblazoned in my brain as "Challenger Explosion".

I remember this accommodation block being towed to Flotta in the orkneys before opening up and removing the remains ….horrible job for anyone to do but had to be done and done with decorum and respect.

I remember this like it was yesterday, I was 15 and my best friends brother had just started offshore and this was his first trip offshore I looked up to him as a brother it was such a sad day, we had heard rumours that it was the rig he was on but didn't 100% know until my best friend knocked on the front door the next day... I will never forget that moment he didn't have to say a word his face told the story, he was one of the first found/identified in the accommodation block (William 'Billy' McIntosh) a true tragedy and waste of so many lives. RIP all who lost their lives that night. Never Forgotten

This is such an outstanding, straightforward, no-melodrama, no-nonsense walkthrough of what happened. I really wish we had this kind of thorough, honest, and hysteria-free storytelling for, uh, just about everything.

My Dad was part of the team that recovered the bodies from the Accomodation block

Was on the MV Western Cove in the area at the time and was on scene searching for survivors a few hours after the event. Only found debris from the accommodation block. Will never forget the mattress floating along complete with sheet and blankets and a clean pair of overalls laid out upon it.

My uncle worked on Piper Alpha, He left shortly before the fire. He earned really good money while working on the rig, whenever family would see him, they'd notice he wore really nice clothing and looked well. So when he quit they were a little disapointed, little did they know. RIP Uncle Craig.

Reading some of the heart breaking comments here brings me straight back to being a kid in Aberdeen in 1988. My dad worked in oil and although he was never involved with Oxydental, he had his fair share of physical scars and stories from a career in oil. I’ll never forget this night, but as a kid i never fully knew of the absolute cluster that brought about the chain of events that killed so many. My deepest condolences to all the bereaved.❤

my cousin was on Piper Alpha when this happened. such a tragedy and will never been forgotten. being in the industry now it’s good to see safety standards increased - at least in Europe

Recovering that housing unit must have been the most horrible and gruesome sight.

Thanks for this excellent presentation of a truly horrific event. I was a diver on the Piper Alpha in 1977, working from the Sedco 704 drill rig that was being used as a diving platform. In those days, the Piper didn't have a special diving platform. Both saturation and surface-supplied diving was from the rig next to it. The bell, lowered through a diving moon pool, had to be pulled in closer to the Piper by means of a tugger wire from rig to the Piper and then back underwater to the bell. Surface supplied diving was by a stage lowered from a rig crane, and entering the water that way I personally installed one of the huge boat bumpers at a corner leg, the bumper visible in one of your pictures. Inspection showed that the Piper"s 'underwater structure had already rusted considerably,. Topside, it was having trouble with gas leaks from the flare stacks. One day I photographed from the rig one of the flares on fire midway along it. In one photo you can see black smoke billowing up and over the helideck. In another you can see the bent flare, melting, about to fall into the sea. And so, although you do a very good job of showing what plausibly are reasonable seququences that together made for a disaster,, an unhappy fall of the cards, I believe that eleven years before that I thought that the Piper might not have a happy fate in store for its people. The North Sea in those days was full of disasters and, along with great courage, it also had great stupidity. I remember a drill rig that had a sign at the stairs up to the drill floor. The sign said, "Days since accident" with a place for a chalked in number. The number never got above 1.(one). On that same rig the steel grate upon which divers had to walk around the bell systerm was open in places with jagged holes, and rails here and there were wobbly. A lifeboat drill was postponed because the falls didn't work properly. The instpectors, as far as I knew, didn't worry about any of this. They did warn me, however, about a file that I was using without a handle on the tang. That was very dangerous, they said. They knew of a man whose hand had slipped, the tang had cut the artery in his wrist and he had died. Those were the days. I guess. On a night of my fifth dive offshore, having gone off a twelve hour day shift to be immediately on a twelve hour night shift, in rough water, with only the light of a flare stack (not the Piper's) and miy own hazy dive light to guide me, I was sent down to clear one of the kort nozzles of a huge tractor tire (that had been used as a boat fender) that was bound up in the screw. The tool I was sent down with was a hacksaw. And the first night I hopped off the helicoper onto a helideck I was asked by the guy taking my duffle whether i had ever been in combat. Because if I had, he said, "you'll love it here, because it's just like combat." And maybe it was. The reasonable sequences, with their terrible coincidences, were like the little sequences through the air of a bullet from muzzle to brain. But in that case, with a lot of noise before hand, it's fast. On the Piper it wasn't, and if you think about too much you can't sleep well ever again. I salute he or she who had the depth of soul to become a drunk after that.

Piper Alpha is often cited alongside USS Forrestal as how bad responses and planning can turn survivable incidents into uncontrolled disasters

I have two relatives who's shift rotations saw them leave the rig several days before the disaster. My heart goes out to those who were lost and to the families of those unfortunate victims.

"Because they don't have the authority to stop production" the Claymore pipeline kept pumping Oil and Gas until Piper had well and truly disintegrated in an inferno. How many of these disasters were caused by corporate policy that put profits ahead of the value of human life ? If only Claymore had stopped pumping as soon as they were notified of an explosion on Piper ???

This incident had a massive influence on my own safety culture at work. It was always the main example given when I was training. Being from the area and knowing family involved it really stuck with me. I know it’s insignificant to the families that lost people but their legacy lives on in our modern safety culture and has no doubt prevented many more tragedies.

I remember this when I was a kid. A few people in my town lost their dads in this tragedy. It was a sad day for our community. A lot of oil workers in my town.

I worked with one survivor for six years between 2010 2016 every year on it anniversary he would always talk to me about it I remember the incident from when I was a young teenager it was something Il never forget prayers to the families and survivors

I’m from Aberdeen and can remember that day as clear as if it was yesterday,the choppers were nonstop that day. A survivor who has now passed on Bob Ballantyne and God bless his memory,the fumes the survivors had to breathe were proven to be death sentences in themselves. A dark day for the City,the industry and more importantly the men and their families who didn’t make it back to the beach Always in our hearts 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🙏🏽

To anyone in the comments who was related to anyone who sadly passed away that day i send you all my condolences and respect and love and prayers to you and your family may God bless you all 🙏🏻 🙏🏻 this was truly tragic.......

Great documentary. We were made to watch a video about Piper Alpha during our safety induction - scary stuff. You really brought to life the impact diving operations had on the automatic fire suppression - this has never been clear to me in the past. This disaster illustrates why the "Swiss Cheese" model of risk remediation is still not perfect - sadly all the holes lined up on this day.

A piping supervisor I worked with in 1997 lost one of his friends on Piper Alpha. Being Scottish and working in the Engineering Industry I also think on the other disasters in the industry such as Buncefield in 2005 when taking out permits on a job. The narration was clear and concise and just short enough to keep the main facts prominent.

An excellent, clear, and straightforward explanation of a horrific tragedy. I remember it well. Thoughts and prayers go to all those lost, and their families. Thank you so much for doing this.

An accident like this, but on a much smaller level, can happen to all of us. Recently, while doing annual maintenance on my riding lawn mower, I skipped an important step that cost me dearly. I drained the old oil from the engine and replaced the oil drain plug. I needed to stop work and visit my doctor for a checkup. Before I left my garage, I taped a note to remind me that I still needed to re-filled the engine. After I returned and finished other maintenance, I started the mower and began cutting the grass. After a short time, the engine seized up. The note to fill the engine with new oil had blown off, which caused me to forget that important step.

I'm from Aberdeen and work in the oil industry and remember this terrible event. My brother in law was a police officer and he was assigned to the temporary mortuary set up at Aberdeen airport. He spent several months there working with the forensic scientists trying to identify all the bodies. Sadly there were some which were too badly burned ever to be positively identified

I feel for the families, friends, and co-workers of this tragedy. Thank you for sharing their story with professionalism and well done mini-documentary.

I remember going into this disaster in depth during dive school. It's always a bunch of minuscule minor errors that seem to snow ball into tragedies like this.

I worked with one of the victims , Bill Scorgie … every time I have a cigar I think about him ( he loved his cigars ) … never forgotten

I was on the Tharos that night : seems like a lifetime ago now. The accommodation module has always bothered me Nobody ever really mentions it. I can't remember seeing that fall into sea : don't know if I was busy with assigned duties, stretcher bearer (no.7) or my mind has continued to keep it filtered out for all this time. The R.A.F. took me off the Tharos at 12:20 am. I was 27

In the days that followed I landed in a helicopter, bringing the fire fighting experts, repeatedly onto the Tharos alongside the Piper A. Even though the Tharos was pumping huge jets of water onto the fire, the heat we experienced on the Tharos helideck was intense. Weeks later we flew a police team to the blackened accommodation module on a barge at Ardersier.

An interesting yet ultimately almost as tragic afternote to the Piper Alpha disaster is the story of Christopher Foster. He was a young salesman in Wolverhampton when Piper Alpha exploded. He was riveted to not only the initial events but to the fire fighting efforts after and the investigations into what had caused it. He became convinced that there was a simple means of manufacturing fire proof seals which would prevent the valves which leaked & sparked the initial blast that night from ever causing a similar disaster again. He worked for years in his garden shed, borrowing money & came up with what he believed was the solution. He borrowed more money and set up a demonstration for half a dozen key industry figures to test the valves. He really didn't know if they would stand up to the temperatures they needed to do all he claimed they could because he couldn't afford to do the real time test twice. So he stood with the oil company execs with bated breath to see if his revolutionary seals held. They did. He became a millionaire off the back of them. Bought a heritage listed Shropshire farmhouse with 50 acres of land. He had stables filled with prized showjumpers. They had a lake, half a dozen Labradors, a massive garage filled with vintage & collectable cars & motorbikes. Matching Range Rovers for him and his wife. Matching sports cars too. In the early hours of Monday 22nd August, 2008, Christopher Foster parked his horse float behind the gates of that mansion so no emergency vehicles would be able to access the property, went back into the house where he un-alived his wife and 15 year old daughter. Then he exited the house, retrieved several large containers filled with diesel fuel, got one of his many guns, un-alived his daughter's horses, all the dogs, his wife's aviary full of birds & set fire to all the buildings. He retirned to the house again, emptied the last of the diese fuel into the downstairs of the house, made a trail if it up the stairs. Down the hallways. All over his daughter's room & the master bedroom too. Before laying back down on the marital bed & letting the inferno take him. He was in millions worth of debt, much of it to HMRC - what we call our tax office His business had been taken over by receivers, he was being sued by a supplier for breach of contract and the bailiffs had just posted a notice of repossession on his house. During the investigation it was discovered that almost all of the antiques he had spent £250,000 buying to furnish the house were cheap reproductions. Mostly plastic which had melted in the intense heat. I find it fascinating that story because what he did to his family was monstrous yet it is undeniable that he did save and to this day is still saving the lives of untold numbers of strangers on oil rigs and other industrial facilities all over the world.

The families of victims had an incredibly long wait for the accomodation module to be recovered. This was done by the recovery specialists in the most sensitive way possible.

I don't think most people realize just how quickly everything went south.

My dad was on the rig next to this one- lost many friends he said it was the single worst event of his 40 year oil rig career😢

Great video. Thank you for producing it. My father-in-law worked as an instrument electrician off-shore for a while. Scary stuff. This also gives the lie to those idiots in comfy newspaper offices who write rubbish about 'health and safety red-tape'!

Piper Alpha is yet another example of safety procedures being important - until they aren’t. A series of decisions and events that appear relatively innocuous on their own culminate in a catastrophic end result. While watching this documentary, all I could think of is that when I make a mistake at work, it affects a document or an email; the only thing hurt is my pride. I don’t have the safety of 200 people on my shoulders. As a Canadian, we had our own disaster in 1982 with the Ocean Ranger, albeit from a different cause. I hope the industry is safer today, or at least as safe as offshore drilling can ever be. My heart goes out to all the men who perished and to the families left behind. 😢

Wow! My dad has worked on oil rigs for 35 years all over the world including a year in the North Sea thank God nothing like that happened to him or anyone we know. What an incredible series of terrible events.

Thank you, a calm well presented insight into this unfortunate disaster, no dramatics just facts. well done. As a post script a few years ago I was is Scotland looking for family members in grave yards in Perth, came across a casualty of this disaster, very sad.

I was 17 and worked in Occidentals Pipe Yard in Peterhead. The Aluminium Body Caskets borrowed from American military came in on flat bed trucks and some arrogant Yank ordered me to put a slicker suit on and steam clean them all . I also witnessed personal belongings discarded on pallets in a shed ( a Phil Collins cassette shrunk by the intense heat sticks in my mind ) and Occidental management claiming expensive equipment in the yard was on the Piper. They didn`t hang about long and were already planning their escape. Even as a wet nosed 17 year old skinny lad I remember thinking you heartless bastards.

"Bloody hell, its really on fire isn't it?" Not to make light of this event, but this is the most hilarious case of comedic British understatement I have heard in a long time.

My mate, Smudge Smith died that day. We served in 2 Para together. I only found out years after the event when I spotted his name on the memorial in Strathclyde Park near Hamilton, Scotland. RIP mate.

I have watched a few videos on this accident and none are as easy to understand as yours thank you. This is such a sad story. The way the men died is awful. What those oil rigs do to our oceans when they have an accident is so infuriating!!

Went to school with a girl who’s dad jumped from the highest part of the rig with a few others and survived. All the men who go out into the North Sea for work have my utmost respect, it must be about the most inhospitable place on the planet for human life.

I knew a guy from Albertinia (South Africa) who worked on that platform. He'd fly in to the UK and he handled the landing barge bringing in supplies. Nice to hear the Saffa accent explaining these events

0:07 - The most British reaction possible for that particular situation

My friend died in this tragedy He was on a summer job before coming back to Uni. RIP to all the lost souls

Sorry for all who lost a friend and family member. May you all rest in peace.

One of the key fundamentals which put in place the conditions for this disaster is, at that time, offshore safety was the responsibility of the Department of Energy, whose main purview was production, rather than the Health & Safety Executive, whose main focus was on safety. It wasn’t that production was deliberately put above safety, but it’s a different mindset, which permeated through the decision making of those setting out and enforcing policy etc, leaving gaps and leading to errors. Piper Alpha was a terrible disaster, but a great opportunity for lessons learned. Sadly, as is almost always the case with these big disasters, those lessons are never quite as embedded as they should be, and often have to be tragically relearned and refreshed again at a later date. Another very good video of a complex event, communicated clearly and simply. Well done

This was an absolutely horrible time one of those who if you watched the live footage will never forget, but it wasn’t in vain, it changed the offshore safety culture. We used to moan about the over the top safety regime but wouldn’t have it any other way. Just a pity we lost a lot of good folks to learn lessons.

I go to the football every week in Glasgow with an auld fella who was an electrician on the rigs for years and was working at Piper Alpha when this happened. He was returning from shore leave and was meant to have flown out the next day. He’s such a chipper old guy but the one time he spoke about this I could tell there was a lot of grief for the friends he had lost mixed in with survivor’s guilt. Thanks for telling this story.

Keeps pumping even with the fire visable 20mls away' Darwin award to those in charge

I was on a day off and was called in to cover for colleagues who had to go up to the general hospital to wait and hear if their men folk were dead or alive . One of the blokes from our estate he was several years ahead of me his sister my year. He was killed and never saw his child born. It still cuts deep in Aberdeen.

I knew of the tragedy, but had no idea of how it came about. Thank you for a very professional documentary. My heart goes out to those who lost their lives and those injured in this awful event.

Fascinating viewing. RIP to all those lost.

How stupid is it that they can clear as day see a giant fireball and explosions at piper and then just decide "meh im sure its fine keep forcing more oil to it"

I had left school a year earlier and was 17 working in Lloyds of London In reinsurance claims. I remember seeing the names of the victims and the claims were massive for everything and seeing the disaster unfold that night on the tv. The victims, the rig, loss of production etc were huge amounts. The names of the individuals was what I always remember.

My dad worked on an oil rig when I was a kid, in the early 80's. It used to terrify me, thinking of him out in the ocean on that thing, if anything were to go wrong. I would cry myself to sleep sometimes, with visions of horrible tragedies, and being helpless to do anything about it. I would miss him so much, while he was gone, and remember being so grateful each time he returned safely. I believe this incident provoked a strong need in my dad to search out other work. He became a car mechanic, and came home every night. Thank you, Jesus, for keeping my dad safe, and God, please continue to be with the families who suffered so much heartbreak and grief, with the loss of their loved ones and friends, and continue to mourn them, to this very day. Such a horrible, horrible, way to die. It reminds me of 9/11, with the towers, people being told to stay in their offices, waiting to be told whether to evacuate, not understanding the severity of the situation they were in. So incredibly heartbreaking. God bless every soul taken too soon. 😔💔🙏 ❤🇺🇲🙏🇺🇲❤️🇺🇲🙏🇺🇲❤

Very well presented outlining the tragic events as they unfolded. Having read the huge Lord Cullen report mapping out the tragedy then all the recommendations was eye watering. This terrible event has touched all of us in the global oil and gas sector. RIP to all the 169 we lost.

Never forgot this Serving my apprenticeship and it was my ambition to get on an offshore rig. Always remember it. RIP talented ppl.

Before I found your channel I had no idea how dangerous and complex working on and under water was. Thank you for this public service that you are providing. Eye opening.

I'll never forget this. I was only a boy with no connections to it but I remember one of the family coming in to say there was a big fire in the North sea. It was visible from the east coast of Caithness and was on the news live.

Thanks for this video. I remember this in the news at the time, but I was not old enough to understand the full extent of this horrific catastrophe. RIP to all those poor souls who lost their lives.

I’ve seen tv shows about this, but your descriptions/narrations really made me feel like I was there. The videos of the explosions-oh my gosh, those poor men. RIP

These rigs really are marvels of engineering and the human spirit. God rest the souls of those that are lost.

A dreadful catastrophe and one thing I take away from this is there seemed to be constant pressure from higher ups to maintain maximum production. Edicts from those not on scene and who have little to no actual knowledge of what it takes to safely maintain such an operation have caused many a disaster.

This Documentary was well done and needed, this tragedy, and those whose lives were taken or traumatized, should never be forgotten.

When I did my permit issuer course the tutor used this incident as a lesson for us along with some mine incidents. Definitely a good lesson as I think back to it with every permit I sign.

Underrated channel, love the way u explain everything, my new favorite, very interesting stories....

When I completed MAPPS in 93 prior to working on Brent we were shown some unreleased footage (at the time) about PA disaster and 2 guys actually left the course without completing it.

Thank you for covering this story. Heartbreaking - so much suffering!!! Met the A&E doctor who was on duty that night at aberdeen hospital. Eye opener what he and his colleagues had to deal with that night. Thankfully, after the disaster, the HSE became responsible for enforcing safety of oil rigs in the North Sea.

Very concise and well told with excellent footage. Excellent storytelling.

Excellent narration of this tragedy. I was pretty young when it happened but I remember my grandfather (who was former U.S. navy) explaining what he had heard on the news and read about it. This is the first concise and detailed explanation of the events I have encountered.

NEVER work the night shift anywhere. That is when hell shows up.

This is how all of these accidents happen. Lack of communication and safety violations.

I am just starting my day shift on this rig today. We are removing all the pipe, plugging whats left and this came on my videos to watch. Crazy day

It was not reasonable to not lock out tag out pump A. Imagine being so bad at your job that you break an entire pipeline and get your coworkers killed

My Dad was off shore in another rig off of Scotland "North sea" . I live on Aberdeen and remember this catastrophe and the lives lost. 🙏⚔️🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿⚔️🌹

This is why we always have briefing before and after every shift. No safety system is perfect, that's why it's important that everyone knows what others are doing.

"the men at claymore platform saw the flames and explosions but did not stop pumping because they didnt have the authority to stop pumping, which could take days to start again" damn, thats kind of like stalin not being rescued by his guards outside his bedroom because they were ordered never to set foot in there

After watching this, it was obvious profits were put over lives.

Impressive sourcing of photos and footage to illustrate the mechanisms you were talking about.

The high price of oil,I worked on piper B and looked at the piper A marker buoy every day with a tear in my eye.RIP

As engineer on a supply/standby vessel in the N Sea stationed off many different platforms, I mostly recall the alarms and emergency procedures for exposure to poisonous gas. Everywhere one went on the vessel masks were required with a 10 minute supply of O2. It was and still is the most hazardous and alien environment ever. Think of them when you start your vehicle.

I worked on Piper Alfa in 1976, 77 my brother was on the Claymore platform at the same time...

Never forget the lives lost that day Changed the way we work forever Both on/off shore oil & gas sectors