Deepwater Horizon in flames in the Gulf of Mexico, April 21, 2010. U.S. Coast Guard Photo
“Rob are you ok?”
Four years ago today, a friend of mine woke me up with those words. He was referring to the drilling rig Deepwater Horizon which had suffered a catastrophic blow out the night before in the Gulf of Mexico.
It was the same rig I was scheduled to fly out to a week later.
About an hour later I was in Transocean’s offices on the west side of Houston witnessing an intense and somber scene unfold. I didn’t know it at the time, but eleven of my colleagues had been killed, and a number more had been terribly injured.
For the next few months I spent many hours in that office building watching the subsea video feeds with fingers crossed while ROV operators did some amazing yet ultimately fruitless work while trying to actuate the blowout preventer in hopes of halting the oil spill.
I remember one of the operations managers remarking, “never in a million years would I ever have believed this could happen.”
Yet it did, of course.
On this fourth anniversary of the blowout on board the Deepwater Horizon and the subsequent Gulf oil spill, a tragedy that sadly overlaps another terrible mishap offshore South Korea with the loss of the Sewol ferry, it’s perhaps an appropriate time to consider the concept of risk.
Prior to the Deepwater Horizon disaster (or Macondo Well) incident depending on your point of view, the industry failed to acknowledge that it was actually possible for a situation to develop where a deepwater well could not be controlled via primary well control barriers such as the blowout preventer.
Even after prior events where BOP failsafes had to be relied upon to avoid major environmental disasters, the industry waited until Murphy’s Law forced it to change.
Had a capping stack actually been available to the offshore drilling industry, instead of trying to engineer one while oil poured into the Gulf of Mexico, the subsequent environmental catastrophe could have been largely avoided.
Today, rescuers off the southern tip of South Korea are retrieving bodies of children drowned after their ferry sank for unknown reasons.
There are a lot of questions yet to be answered surrounding the circumstances leading to this tragedy, however it’s impossible to deny that mistakes were made by individual people which led to this.
Accidents are avoidable, they don’t just happen. This is a key concept that needs to be embraced if we have any chance of learning from these tragedies.
Take a personal interest in the safety of your colleagues and those you are entrusted to protect and make it your goal to change at least one thing in order to make your workplace safer. Remember, you don’t need to be in charge in order to be a safety leader, safety is everyone’s responsibility.
Shipping firms may need to pay a fee to use the Baltic Sea, one of the world's busiest shipping routes, in order to cover the high costs of protecting undersea cables, Estonia's defense minister said on Wednesday following a spate of breaches.
Russian nuclear icebreaker 50 Let Pobedy (50 Years of Victory) suffered damage to its hull in a collision with a cargo ship while operating on the Northern Sea Route. Photos of the incident show a deep gash on the vessel’s port side near its bow.
Swedish authorities boarded a Maltese-flagged ship seized in connection with the latest breach of cables running along the bottom of the Baltic Sea to begin an investigation into the matter, the country's security police said on Monday.
January 27, 2025
Total Views: 2637
Sign Up Now for gCaptain Daily
We’ve got your daily industry news related to the global maritime and offshore industries.
JOIN OUR CREW
Maritime and offshore news trusted by our 108,866 members delivered daily straight to your inbox.
Your Gateway to the Maritime World!
Essential news coupled with the finest maritime content sourced from across the globe.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.