They were also frozen by the sheer complexity of the Horizon’s defenses, and by the policies that explained when they were to be deployed. The crew members, though expert in responding to the usual range of well problems, were unprepared for a major blowout followed by explosions, fires and a total loss of power. The Horizon was like a Gulf Coast town that regularly rehearsed for Category 1 hurricanes but never contemplated the hundred-year storm. The first was a failure to train for the worst. The paralysis had two main sources, the examination by The Times shows. For many, the first hint of crisis came in the form of a blast wave. For nine long minutes, as the drilling crew battled the blowout and gas alarms eventually sounded on the bridge, no warning was given to the rest of the crew. The result, the interviews and records show, was paralysis. Some were activated too late, after they had almost certainly been damaged by fire or explosions. What emerges is a stark and singular fact: crew members died and suffered terrible injuries because every one of the Horizon’s defenses failed on April 20. Their accounts, along with thousands of documents obtained by The New York Times describing the rig’s maintenance and operations, make it possible to finally piece together the Horizon’s last hours. It is based on interviews with 21 Horizon crew members and on sworn testimony and written statements from nearly all of the other 94 people who escaped the rig. This is the story of how and why it didn’t. On paper, experts and investigators agree, the Deepwater Horizon should have weathered this blowout. The crew itself routinely practiced responding to alarms, fires and blowouts, and it was blessed with experienced leaders who clearly cared about safety. It had systems to prevent gas from exploding and sophisticated alarms that would quickly warn the crew at the slightest trace of gas.
#DEEPWATER HORIZON FREE#
It had devices to quickly seal off a well blowout or to break free from it.
It was equipped to divert surging oil and gas safely away from the rig. Nearly 400 feet long, the Horizon had formidable and redundant defenses against even the worst blowout.
Investigators have dissected BP’s well design and Halliburton’s cementing work, uncovering problem after problem. With government inquiries under way and billions of dollars in environmental fines at stake, most of the attention has focused on what caused the blowout. It has been eight months since the Macondo well erupted below the Deepwater Horizon, creating one of the worst environmental catastrophes in United States history. An overwhelmed young crew member, Andrea Fleytas, finally screamed what so many were thinking: Several said their prayers and jumped into the oily seas 60 feet below. Crew members, certain they were about to be cooked alive, scrambled into enclosed lifeboats for shelter, only to find them like smoke-filled ovens.
That same explosion had ignited a firestorm that enveloped the rig’s derrick. Dazed and battered survivors, half-naked and dripping in highly combustible gas, crawled inch by inch in pitch darkness, willing themselves to the lifeboat deck. Some were swallowed by fireballs that raced through the oil rig’s shattered interior.
The worst of the explosions gutted the Deepwater Horizon stem to stern.Ĭrew members were cut down by shrapnel, hurled across rooms and buried under smoking wreckage.
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