The world's worst offshore disaster claimed 167 lives when an explosion and fire occurred on the Piper Alpha platform in the North Sea on 1988. That incident made 106 safety improvement recommendations have been used across the world to improve safety, not only in the oil industry but also in the nuclear, airline, military and other industries. There were a total of three blasts in which most men died, the fire in 2 hrs. had sent the rig into the Sea.
Regular maintenance was being done on the piper alpha rig. On July 6 two pumps designated pump A and B were taken off for routine maintenance the open pipes were covered with temporarily with a disk cover (Evans). Since the work on the pumps was not finished the engineer from the day shit left the cover on and filled out a permit stating that the pump could not be switched on. Once the day shift ended, the permit was never seen again (Evans). If the permit had been placed in the area that was needed the explosion might have not even occurred. A lack of communication from the day to night shift made it possible for this fire to occur. The night shift thinking the pumps were fixed turned them on. When a loud-pressured amount of gas started to leak from where the cover was. Before anyone could do anything the gas ignited causing an explosion . According to Evans the platform was originally built for oil, the firewalls were designed to resist fire rather than withstand explosions. The explosion broke the walls and parts of the walls ruptured another pipe that was near by causing another fire to start. The fire would have burnt out if two other lines were not feed it from the tartan and claymore platforms.
The fire that occurred on the piper alpha on the night of July 6,...
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...to crumple off into the North Sea. The fire could have stopped with the burning off of the first explosion, since the rig was originally built for oil, not gas the firewalls had no chance with the explosion. Even with that the fire would have burned out, but parts of flying shrapnel collided with another pipe and started another fire, with the heat build up the pipes started to melt making another explosion, which lead to another explosion for a total of three blasts.
The fire continued to burn because it was begin feed by two other pipes. Rescue was hard; because of the wind smoke heat and fire. Most men died because of asphyxiation, some off burns and others from the blasts. That accident made huge changes in the oil and gas production. Piper alpha will be remembered as on of the worst off shore accidents to this date. Last year 2013 was the 25-year anniversary.
On April 9, 1997, Rig 52 that belonged to Mallard Bay Drilling was towed to a location in the territorial waters of Louisiana, where it drilled a well over two miles deep. After the well was almost complete an explosion occurred killing four of the crew and injuring several others. Seeing that this was a marine casualty in navigable U.S. waters, under existing regulations the United States Coast Guard responded. When the investigation was over the Coast Guard did not find any violations of their regulations and noted it was an uninspected vessel and the operator held an Operator Uninspected Passenger Vessel (OUPV) license. Soon after the incident the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) cited Mallard Bay Drilling for violations
At 2215 hrs, on November 28, 1942, Fire Alarm Headquarters from Box 1514, situated at Stuart and Carver streets, received an alarm. When the responding apparatus arrived they found a small car fire at the corner of Stuart Street and Broadway. After the fire was extinguished the firefighters were about to return to quarters when their attention was called to smoke emanating from the Cocoanut Grove Nightclub a few doors away. Upon their arrival at the entrance of the Broadway lounge on Broadway they encountered numerous people leaving the premises admidst the cries of “fire”. The chief in charge immediately ordered that a third alarm be sounded from Alarm Box 1521 which the alarm was received by fire alarm headquarters at 2223 hrs. A civilian sent an alarm that was received at 2220 by fire alarm headquarters. As soon as the chief in charge realized that the immediate problem was one of rescue he ordered that a fourth alarm (received at 2224) and a fifth alarm (received at 1102) be sent. The apparatus responding was comprised of 25 engine companies, 5 ladder companies, 1 water tower company, 1 rescue company and various other apparatus. 18 hose steams for cooling purposes and three ladders were utilized (located at Piedmont, Broadway, and Shawmut for venting operations).
The drought was near historic high levels for the time of year. In the moments before the entrapment on of the squads and the crew boss trainee were working with a fire engine and its three person crew when a spot fire erupted right next to the road. The seven Northwest Regular Crew number six and a engine crew got in there vehicles and drove south past the fire along the edge of the road. While driving they radioed the other 14 crewmembers who were working north further up the river about the dangerous situation. The 14 crewmembers and the incident commander and two Northwest Regular number six squad members were suppressing spot fires between the river and the road ¼ mile north of the first squad when they were informed of the situation that was threatening there es...
Meshkati, Najmedin. "Human Factors in Large-Scale Technological Systems' Accidents: Three Mile Island, Bhopal, Chernobyl." Industrial Crisis Quarterly 5 (1991): 131-54. Personal World Wide Web Pages. Web. 19 Mar. 2011. .
The fire, which began on October 8, 1871, spread so quickly it was unmanageable. One of the reasons the fire became so irrepressible is that the firefighters were already exhausted from having fought a fire the day before. The firemen underestimated the potential of this fire when they first responded to it. As a result of the fire the previous day, the firefighters’ equipment, including the fire hose, was not in the best condition. Furthermore, the hose that was available was in short supply (Murphy 30).
This preventable event , which claimed the life of a crew of seven, left many
for the workers of the company. All the blame is not due to poor design and construction flaws, but to the oil companies for not teaching the employees about the system. This disaster could have been prevented if the engineers and oil companies were not blinded by their ignorant beliefs that the Ocean Ranger was unsinkable. Citations 1. http://www.canadianheritage.org/reproductions/21050.htm.
In April 2010, a gas release and consequent explosion occurred on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig located in the Gulf of Mexico, which BP was leasing from Transocean, a Swiss company. The explosion killed 11 workers, injured 17 others, and dumped
The fire quickly spread due to the wooden framing, after the explosion was caused by the heater being knocked off of the wall by one of the occupants, agents from the state bomb and arson unit are continuing an investigation into the matter.
The analysis in this report will include a summary of the sequence of events leading up to the disaster, analysis of the professional ethical behaviours and responsibilities that were compromised, and finally the lessons learned and recommendations to avoid such future disasters.
Although the fire wasn’t the first one to occur and only lasted a mere 30 minutes, which didn’t even allow from news reporters to get a report it set of a spark in people for a cleaner river(Book). The fire reached heights of about 5 stories tall and damaged two railroad bridges(Britannica)(Website). With further investigation it was determined that oil slick debris was trapped between two wooden trestles, which were located at Campbell Road hill located in Southeast Cleveland (Website). Damage for this fire was said to be around fifty thousand dollars, forty-five thousand of it was in the destruction of a bridge owned by Norfolk and Western Railway Company. The other five thousand was the Newburgh and South Shore Railway trestle (Website). The event of the Cuyahoga River can be head in the song “Burn On” by Randy Newman
On march 24, 1989, the Exxon Valdez hit a reef called Bligh Reef, severely damaging the ship, and rupturing eight out of the eleven holds. The third mate increased the damage of the ship by trying to break free of the reef, but this only did more damage to the ship causing more oil to spill out than before. This was the cause of human error, and if not for the carelessness of the captain, and the inexperience of the third mate, the ship would have never hit the reef. The captain should have stayed at the helm until he got the ship back into the correct shipping lane. Exxon’s oil spill changed how Prince William Sound operates today, and has made shipping safer for the environment.
In a matter of seconds a massive ball of fire arose over the Naval Air Station in Lakehurst New Jersey. Black clouds of smoke filled the sky, and people ran in terror, trying to find safety. The explosion of the Hindenburg on Thursday May 6, 1937, was reported to be the biggest disaster in history due to the lack of technology and engineering human errors. In that short period of time 35 people lost their lives and many of the 97 passengers were brutally injured (The Hindenburg Disaster). We will always remember this tragic day, but because of this the means of transportation have improved greatly and many travel the world safely, not having to worry about fatal accidents like the zeppelin perishing in Lakehurst, New Jersey.
The equipment used to drill for oil is extremely unsafe and can lead to people being injured. Deepwater Horizon is one of the largest oil rig disasters in recent memory, where eleven people died and over one million barrels of oil were leaked into the ocean (“BP was negligent” 1). While these may seem like rare occurrences, between the year 2006 and 2010 over five hundred oil rig fires broke out just in the Gulf of Mexico (Melina, Why Is Offshore Drilling So Dangerous?, livescience.com). With more of these accidents happening every year, it is shocking to see that oil companies still try to argue that these rigs are completely safe. Not only can people get hurt during these accidents but if one of the oil pipelines were to break, the damage done to the environment would be
After the accident, a full-scale investigation was launched by the United States National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). It concluded that the accident was caused by metal fatigue exacerbated by crevice corrosion, the corrosion is exacerbated by the salt water and the age of the aircraft was already 19 years old as the plane operated in a salt water environment.