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On their website was a 2:41-long video “extra” that tells in searing detail the recollections of Mike Williams, Deepwater Horizon‘s chief electronics technician, who survived the explosion and fire, and was one of the last people to make it off the rig alive. He describes how the last life raft full of survivors almost didn’t escape the burning oil slick under the doomed rig because no one had a knife to cut the sea painter with due to Transocean’s no-knife policy.


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could BP have removed them as part of there "no knife" pollicy? or could someone have removed them when they needed a knife and then not returned it.


Wasn't this fellow in the video clip the Deepwater Horizon's chief electronics technician (a Transocean employee not a BP employee). If I recall correctly wasn't the loss of the Deepwater Horizon Drilling Platform basically due to the failure of the BOP, which was the result of an electronics failure due to a dead battery.

Perhaps it might be worthwhile asking the question of why the workers on the Deep Water Horizon were unaware of the correct lifeboat evacuation procedure rather than trying to blame the Companies no blade weapons policy. This story seems to be more a failure of the correct escape procedure training rather than a corporate knife policy.

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Policy on knives contributed to BP oil rig deaths?


The Deep Water Horizon was a Transocean rig and not owned or run by BP.

With most of these types of accidents there is usually a cascade of failures of technical machinery and human incompetence (failed to understand what the design limits of the machinery are) and I suspect the failure of certain individuals to stand up and be counted for not breaching safety standards under the pressure of the management (who in many circumstances don't know what they are doing and don't respect the opinions of less well paid by much more experienced personnel) culture of specified targets which are set by the top of the organisation without regard of the safety standards within the industry. Incompetence from top and a cowardice from the bottom makes for bad situation, the usual story of profit over risk.








Edited by Am_Fear_Liath_Mor (08/12/10 08:19 PM)