Thanks for the good sources of information. Reading through things it looks to me like this will end up reading like a typical aviation accident report, lots of indicators and opportunities to prevent the accident upstream of the final critical bit of bad luck/decision making. If I followed everything, they were actually done drilling and getting things ready to move on so in theory they were actually past the most dangerous part. Capping things off sounds risky but less dangerous than the actual drilling.

Hopefully those in the industry will look for effective ways to brake the chain of events that lead to the accident in a couple of places. Usually you would try to break the chain as early as possible. Adding backups to backups and more last ditch fail safes usually just adds complication and cost with little real benefit.

Based on the experiences in my industry, I would be willing to bet that the press (and lawmakers) will find a couple of big newsworthy things to focus on and demand "fixes" for those things, regardless of cost/benefit or any real effectiveness.

That last bit is more cynical sounding and broad brushed than I meant it to be but I will let it stand.

- Eric