A detailed article in the Wall Street Journal about the lack of command and control system after the BP oil rig fire eerily brings back memories of the lack of emergency response after Piper Alpha disaster in 1988. In the BP oil rig fire emergency response, the article mentions the following points:
"The chain of command broke down at times during the crisis, according to many crew members. They report that there was disarray on the bridge and pandemonium in the lifeboat area, where some people jumped overboard and others called for boats to be launched only partially filled.
The vessel's written safety procedures appear to have made it difficult to respond swiftly to a disaster that escalated at the speed of the events on April 20. For example, the guidelines require that a rig worker attempting to contain a gas emergency had to call two senior rig officials before deciding what to do. One of them was in the shower during the critical minutes, according to several crew members.
The written procedures required multiple people to jointly make decisions about how to respond to "dangerous" levels of gas—a term that wasn't precisely defined—and some members of the crew were unclear about who had authority to initiate an emergency shutdown of the well".
We seem to not learn from previous disasters like Piper Alpha where similar confusion existed after the fire!
Read the full article in this link.
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