Decisions and Disasters -2

A friend of mine who is in top management in a large organization sent me this article about the BP oil spill, highlighting the following points:
"With the schedule slipping, Williams says a BP manager ordered a faster pace.Williams says going faster caused the bottom of the well to split open, swallowing tools and that drilling fluid called "mud."
We actually got stuck. And we got stuck so bad we had to send tools down into the drill pipe and sever the pipe,Williams explained.There's always pressure, but yes, the pressure was increased.He discovered chunks of rubber in the drilling fluid. He thought it was important enough to gather this double handful of chunks of rubber and bring them into the driller shack. I recall asking the supervisor if this was out of the ordinary. And he says, 'Oh, it's no big deal.' And I thought, 'How can it be not a big deal? There's chunks of our seal is now missing,'Williams told Pelley.
The BOP is operated from the surface by wires connected to two control pods; one is a back-up. Williams says one pod lost some of its function weeks before. "The communication seemed to break down as to who was ultimately in charge," Williams said. What strikes Bea is Williams' description of the blowout preventer. Williams says in a drilling accident four weeks before the explosion, the critical rubber gasket, called an "annular," was damaged and pieces of it started coming out of the well.
Investigators have also found the BOP had a hydraulic leak and a weak battery".

Read the full article in this link