The thought of being so shell-shocked from the fire and from the explosion that you don't realize that the man you're trying to find rescue with is dead. What a brutal account to retell.
While I’m sure it was a horrifying discovery for the survivor, it was meant to be that the dead man’s body served the purpose of saving the life of another. That’s more than most of us have the chance to do while we live and it would have been comforting to me, if I were a relative, to know that his death wasn’t a complete waste.
You may not appreciate this, and it's kind of irrelevant. But I had a great uncle that was a commander of a PT boat in the Pacific during world war II. An American PT boat. PT boats had 14 men on them and out there was a very dangerous place for him as the Japanese had mined all around all those islands in the shallow Waters where the where the boats regularly moved. Anyways his boat one night hit a mine and blew a part and he spent 9 hours that night clinging to a piece of wooden wreckage listening to his men screaming bloody murder from injuries and like eight of them were eating alive by sharks. He was the only man that survived they found him floating unconscious on a broken piece of wood the next morning. It was not a story he was fond of telling and and the the obvious pain from here and the men that he commanded and lived with and the trauma from it definitely affected him until his death more than 70 years later. PTSD is just unimaginable how deeply it affects people. Haunting
@@Lucinda_Jackson yes indeed. Great Tom. He was my great uncle. A wonderful man full of life and intelligence. I was fascinated by him and stories my mom told me about him when I was young. So many people have similar stories, things in life that affected them in ways they never come to understand. It goes to show that humans are resilient in ways beyond comprehension and fragile as a spring flower all at once. Life is truly amazing.
My late step-father Hamish was the medical examiner at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary when this happened, he was the guy who determined the cause of death. He didn’t talk about the Piper Alpha often, but when he did he told me it was the reason he stopped being an ME, that a lot of the bodies weren’t intact, and it left him with PTSD, horrible depression and alcoholism. Any time I visit Hazlehead Park I go to the Piper Alpha memorial, I think of Hamish. He eventually took his life at 56, it was just too much to live with. If anyone is ever up this way visiting Aberdeen I’d recommend visiting Hazlehead, it’s a beautiful memorial. Edit: thanks to everyone in the replies for letting me speak about Hamish, he died a decade ago but being able to speak about him has really helped in a way. I still grieve him but understand his mental suffering was just too severe, so being able to speak about our fond memories has teared me up in a good way.
@@Lucinda_Jackson always gives me comfort, sometimes talk to the memorial (we took his ashes back to Skye to be scattered) as it’s the closest to me, Skye is west coast and I’m east coast, so it gives me some comfort when I just wanna say hello and talk about life. Maybe looks weird to people, but it gives me some comfort ❤
@@ZombieSazza Not weird at all and it shows an emotional maturity that mist don’t possess. I’m happy for you that you have a place to visit and feel close.
what becomes too much to live with, is not the deaths that have occurred, although the death wakes people up to reality. no, what becomes too much to bear is that the human race continues to trade everything sacred, to continue pumping oil from the depths of Mother Earth's guts. As a human being, you have or had a connection with mother Earth. She gives you life.. your body is a biological organic demonstration of that fact. And you KNOW deep deep down into the pits of your conscience.. that the way human beings live is wrong, it's barbaric, it' destroys life. THAT'S why suicide is a pandemic.. and has been ignored, of course. Part and parcel of the human species BLINDNESS.
Sorry for your loss. People stigmatize PTSD and expect us guys to just take it. But until youve seen people chopped up from war or accidents you just have no idea. That shit will stay in your brain forever. You see it when youre sleeping, when youre awake, when your talking to your kids...people dont get it and they dont care, like, at all.
Out of all FH videos, I think this is one that's shocked me the most. Especially the parts about the 6 survivors perishing in the boat and the survivor who didn't realise the fate of the person he clung onto. I'm not surprised so many were affected by this afterwards.
me too. something about it being a metal island full of fuel, consuming itself and everyone on it. just horrifying. almost like we turned ourselves into ants and set fire to our colony
Yeah, the destruction of the rescue boat and almost everyone in her was a truly horrific surprise. It also was the point, IIRC, there were no more rescue attempts because the situation was just too dangerous.
I knew a survivor from this disaster, Keith Cunningham, a diver on the rig. He was working as Generator Mechanic/Dive Master for the Lady Jenny 5 working on the Red Sea when I met him. Keith was one of the best divers I ever met and I learned a lot just watching him on a dive. His ability to move so effortlessly through the water made me copy everything he did. When he saw the dive suit I brought with me, he said it wasn’t adequate for the Red Sea and he lent me a spare wetsuit. After a couple of dives, I realized how miserable I would have been if he hadn’t shown some kindness to a rookie diver. He was also the most Zen person I’ve known in my 64 years on this planet. Always soft spoken, calm, and collected. I was a Yank living in Yorkshire when the disaster happened. Had no idea I would ever know someone who had gone through it. The only reason I knew about it was from the acting skipper of the boat…we were talking on the bridge about random stuff and I mentioned how Keith was the most calm person I ever met. That’s when he told me that Keith was one of the survivors. I never brought it up to Keith as I figured if he wanted to talk about it he would. He passed away a few years back. 2014 I believe. I’m glad I got to know him.
Right if you're not going to go the whole hog and get a message to the man that needs to know the very least you should do is make it impossible to miss that something is out of order.
That's the first thing that came into my mind! Even if that's not protocol, taping a piece of paper with the words "OUT OF ORDER" or "DO NOT USE" on something that should not be used usually serves the purpose quite well!
My cousin was a derrick man on this rig.. He was on holiday at the time and they flew him home and he helped cap the fires with red adair.. Said it was horrible to see.. He lost a lot of friends.. Such a tragedy
My dad was working on a nearby support vessel. He once told me about pulling people out of the water and their skin coming away. I've never asked him about it ever again.
Two of my uncles died in this disaster and one survived. A lot of my family worked on this rig. The repercussions were still being felt heavily in 1998
Every time I have to lock onto multiple isolation permit stations just to get a simple job done I remember that it was incidents like this that prompted such byzantine procedures. Our safety is bought with the lives of many workers before us.
I think everything should have work permits like we did in my old factory. If they had, the pump, the pipes, and the safety valve, all being part of the same 'unit,' would have their permits, notes, tags, locks, etc. stored in the same box labeled "X Assembly Unit." So, if you wanted to start, say, Press 1, but the feed bin for Press 1 (in the feed room) was inop, you'd be able to see this easily.
@@Scorpioncactusflower Having it together is a good system, but in this case, the work permit went missing, I believe, altho this docu says it was left on a desk. We'll never know, as the entire platform was destroyed.
One of a series of huge disasters in Britain in the mid-late 80s. Bradford City, Zeebrugge, Lockerbie, Kings Cross, Hillsborough... it seemed as though every other week, something terrible happened.
My Dad, a structural engineer, was on leave that week in Bristol with my Mum. His best friend Christopher also worked there and was on shift. He was one of the lucky people on the life boat, but clearly remembers the burning fireballs. Mum insisted Dad stop working on the platforms after this and indeed he never returned. The CEO of the company who owned Piper Alpha was a terrible person who never faced repercussions.
God, more than once in this video I thought “just when I thought this can’t get any worse.” What a catastrophe. Special condolences to the rescue workers of the Sandhaven who died gallantly trying to save others.
It was a case of 'everything that could go wrong, did go wrong '. When the control room was destroyed, the fireproof walls turned into shrapnel, and the controls to the fire suppression system were destroyed.
I worked in that business at that time. Off shore. As a telex operator for a pipe-laying company which at the moment of the accident happened to work in the North Sea. Many of my collegues had friends, family working in the oil industry too. Some of those people on board of Piper-Alpha. Right after the disaster happened, the telexes went berserk. Many a collegue's face went pale as a sheet. Our ship stopped their work and went to the location of Piper-Alpha to see if they could offer any help. But there was nothing they could do. It was a horrifying an sad time.
The name of this channel, Fascinating Horror, is perfect to describe the story of Piper Alpha. Not only is it one of those rare disasters where a bad situation is magnified by a series of coincidences that made it God awful but it also features a hindrance of response in that oil continued to be pumped into the inferno as opposed to an immediate cutoff. The story of the rescue boat and the survivors they pulled from the water being killed by a subsequent explosion is a unique form of nightmare.
Several years after the disaster, I was working at a persons property and they began chatting. The gentleman showed me his work. His job was working for oil producers and their North Sea rigs. He brought some paperwork and it was incredible - stunning complex engineering drawings of plumbing systems for oil rigs. Each rig system had pages and pages of it. The drawings were coloured in a pastel palette to differentiate each pipe loop. This gentlemans job was to plan rig maintenance. In particular, plumbing maintenance. He showed me how just one task would essentially change parameters within the plumbing and so each move had to be worked out, plotted, fully written out in vast detail and then he would move to the next step. Because of my familiarity with the disaster, I could see just how involved and important maintenance schedules are on a rig. I'll be honest and admit that the whole responsibility on this gentlemans shoulders blew me away. Every single rig workers life depended upon this gentleman getting everything correct.
I vividly remember this. I was painting T-shirts with my brother when the news broke. I live in Glasgow, so local television was quick to spring into action. Only when you saw the rig ablaze, that you realised how bad it was. It's an absolute horror made real. It could be seen from Aberdeen!!!!! I worked with a guy whose son died. He fought for regulation until his death. I had read that the escaping gas was at such a high pressure, that the friction of it escaping ignited it. Machinery screaming before it explodes in flames!!
I lived and worked in the oil industry at this time, the first you knew was multiple helicopters flying overhead in the early hours, I just knew something had gone badly wrong. I went to work, I worked with a major oil company, the tension was palpable, we were all asked to donate blood, sadly we were not needed. My partner worked on the Tharos, it couldn't get to close as it's a dive support vessel and packed with tons of bottles of gases, they did try though, when he arrived back home his face looked like he had bad sunburn, that's how hot it was and how close they tried to get. The majority of fatalities were in the accommodation module, those who went against health and safety procedures were the only ones who survived. God bless ever single one of their souls.
@@davidlittle611 The most common theoretical scenario for a platform evacuation involved everyone mustering in the accommodation block and waiting for helicopters to take everyone off. The few managers and supervisors who survived the destruction of the control room in the initial blast followed this scenario. The heat and smoke prevented any helicopter rescues and the life boats were mostly unreachable, so the survivors were the ones who escaped the platform by any means necessary, which was not standard practice.
I've heard that crew members on aircraft or ships nearly an entire kilometer away could feel the heat _through the hull of their vessels,_ that's genuinely insane to think about
@@davidlittle611 IIRC emergency protocol was to take shelter in the accommodation block, because it was the (deliberately designed) most robust part of Alpha and would remain intact beyond other parts of the platform. This meant, I have read, that when the platform collapsed, the accommodation block was still mostly intact and there were people alive within. Those who sought either shelter or escape beyond the block thus had a higher chance of surviving. Still being alive inside the acc. block when it went beneath the waves is nightmare fuel. I've seen a couple of documentaries on Piper Alpha and the contrast between the enormous intact platform and what remnants were visible on the sea's surface the next day were chilling.
I remember seeing this unfold on TV as a kid off sick from school. More importantly, as a facilities worker with an interest in health and safety, I use this as an example of why recordkeeping and logging stuff is SO important. It's not just pen-pushing -- it's to protect you and everyone else around you.
As an admin in the NHS - it always infuriates me when people complain about 'paperpushers' and all the rigmarole you have to go through to get anything done (and that we should be fired because we're uselessly taking up funding etc). This is why. It's why admin record everything and anything they can get their hands on.
I also used this for years as a case study when training Internal Quality Auditors, as a case where one 'stupid' piece of paper caused a chain of events that resulted in this horror. I used to draw a flow chart of the events starting with the missing 'work permit', without telling the trainees what it related to. As each step unfolds they cotton on to where it ultimately leads and the shocked realisation is very good at getting across that everything is important in its' own way. Interesting to find someone else that uses it, it really is an amazing case study. (I don't mean 'amazing' in a good way, just a very 'easy to explain' way).
I remember this so clearly.a number of years ago.a documentary was made on this for the anniversary. It was heartbreaking to hear some of the survivors stories. All of them have p.t.s.d. And the guilt of survival and friends didn’t
I spoke to a guy whose job it was to make the rigs a lot safer after this disaster. They had fit a new generator that would provide power, lighting and power to the fire system. He said that the generator was in the middle of a process room and the only way to get to it was to walk through a pitch black room and start it manually with a pull cord. When you did start the generator it started with a very loud bang (250dbl) and the operations manager didn't know what the problem with this system was and that the men didn't need drilling on the procedure until it was put to him this way: "You'll have 200 men with memories of piper alpha standing at the muster station 200ft above sea level during a power shutdown and they will hear a very very loud explosion. What do you think they are going to do when they hear it?" After that they put the shutdown practice drill as a monthly thing.
They use cartridges to start those generators, they are like massive shotgun cartridges that spin the motor to start it up. In an enclosed environment with lots of metal an already loud noise gets amplified all to hell.
How sad for all of those people. I'm especially saddened to think of the six people that survived the blast and fire, survived jumping into the ocean while avoiding debris, only to have been killed after they climbed aboard the rescue boat.
There were 3 rescue guys on that boat and 6 people they picked up. One rescue guy got blasted away from the boat by the explosion and survived. He was the only one.
I was about to turn 5 years old when this happened and my dad was a roughneck working this field and had worked this rig. The disaster changed our lives, I don't think he ever liked his job but he actively hated it after this (understandably) and descended into alcoholism. He lost friends in the most horrific way and has never gotten over it. He continued to work in the industry until retirement and actively encouraged his coworkers to ignore messages from gaffers, even him, in a disaster situation if they made no sense (ie staying in accommodation block to await rescue and ending up trapped). As far as I recall, all the survivors from this disaster broke the 'rules' and ignored orders to stay put. He also kept much more of a distance from his co-workers and made no more friends incase something like that happened again. Horrible, horrible incident which should never have happened and ruined thousands of lives forever. I hope its never forgotten.
" to ignore messages from gaffers, even him, in a disaster situation if they made no sense (ie staying in accommodation block to await rescue and ending up trapped)" What an ugly reality and what an act of caring. "I may have to send you a message that is not in your best interest for the sake of keeping my job, but I need you to understand that for your own good, it should be ignored."
Me too. I also learned the following. The IMO SOLAS training manual (3.2) has guidelines for the use of lifejackets, which include a recommended maximum height of 4.5m for jumping into the water with a lifejacket on. The guidelines also instruct the user to: hold your nose and cover your mouth with your left hand.
Wow I really feel for the guys on that rig. A complete tragedy. RIP to all those who didn't make it and to anyone left alive after this agony, I'm really sorry and I wish you all the best. Freaking perfect narration, as usual...Thank you Fascinating Horror, bringing the past to life
My grandfather worked on Piper Alpha in the permit office and thankfully retired around '86 or '87. I know a survivor through my parents and when I've talked to him you can tell it has cast a huge shadow over his life since. The only silver lining is that offshore safety has come a long way since then and I experienced this first hand having spent a few recent years offshore. RIP to those that never made it back
what people prob don't realise but thanks to things like this Aberdeen hospital is considered the world leader in training and treating oil rig related injuries. my father was until just before this incident a helicopter pilot for british airways helicopter stationed in Aberdeen And Shetland. he was also search and rescue qualified. He would tell me that if you weren't properly protected the survival time in the north sea was about 5 min before you froze to death. Sadly he and my mum lost a lot of friends due to helicopter accidents. including one when the tail of the helicoper clipped a crane, causing it to drop onto the helo pad then fell over the side. when they recovered the wreckage they two pilots where still strapped in, they had no chance to escape. RIP to all the brave men who died working and servicing the North Sea Rigs.
I was in training to go offshore for the very first time on the Rowan Gorilla VI jack up rig…. The first thing I was shown was a video of the Piper Alpha burning. Then I was shown helicopters falling off the helideck with people onboard, etc etc. It hit me what a dangerous occupation I was taking on. And my career offshore ended the day cougar 491 crashed into the sea, killing 17 of my buddies. I had just been brought out there by the same chopper. That was the day I decided money was not everything and I have worked on land ever since. My nerves got the better of me.
Maybe it wasn't so much your nerves getting the better of you & more like your heart & intelligence working together to steer you in a safer direction! Straight up guardian angel kinda stuff! Stay safe; it's obvious your presence here is important! Peace
Pragmatic take here: I'd rather have a chopper pilot comfortable and confidant in the environment they're working in. Listening to your "nerves" may have saved several lives, including your own.
There's a lot that went wrong here, but I think a big lesson is if you have a piece of paperwork that basically says, "Don't push this button or we all die." You make damn sure that gets to the right person and don't just leave it nearby and assume someone will see it.
@@DrAngryMongoose that is proper lockout tag out procedure nowadays. You lock the thing so it physically won't work and leave a big colorful sign explaining why.
@@patientallison It's a little more complex with what happened to the missing paperwork on Piper Alpha - pretty much the issue was that all maintenance in one section was kept together, and paperwork for another section was kept together - problem is when issues cross over - people were looking at paperwork for why the generator was out of order and couldn't find it - the paperwork for the PIPE was in a different location. That was how they filed stuff back then (I might be misremembering, it's been a while since I read up / watched documentaries on this disaster)
@@patientallison lockout tagout was established in the U.S. in 1982, but I'm not sure about British standards. Occidental is a U.S. based company but Piper Alpha was operating in British territory I believe.
My grandfather was a radio operator that night. He was one of the people coordinating the rescue effort. I have his transcriptions from the night but I've never looked at them. Not sure if I ever will.
Through the 90s and 00s I used to run training programs for Internal Quality Auditors, and I used the Piper Alpha as a case study on how one missed bit of paper can start a chain of events that cannot be imagined. People generally don't like paperwork and miss things regularly, and in some situations it doesn't really matter but unless we check, re-check and re-check again, we never know when that one bit of information, one form, one data entry on a computer, could set of a train of events that is disastrous. I worked in the field of medical devices, so we were still talking life/death situations, albeit in a completely different patient-based way.
I remember seeing the Piper Alpha disaster on the news. I was today years old when I learned it had been replaced with a more modern platform, with a pleasingly sequential name.
I’m such a Fascinating Horror geek, I’m always keen to check on recent uploads to this channel. No one does it like you, bud. Your cadence, delivery, background music, the details and information you provide is truly fascinating. Thanks for the continued hard work and research :)
My Dad worked on the Buchan Alpha, another rig nearby, at the time. I was only 5 when the disaster happened so I didn't know enough to really worry at the time but I do remember seeing oil rigs on the news and asking if it was Daddy's they were talking about. All I remember my Dad saying about it at the time was that he knew some people on the Piper Alpha, I don't remember if he said they had survived or not. Watching this now was a gut punch, realising how easily it could have been my Dad jumping into the North Sea, talking to dead men.
Yep, shift change is a particularly vulnerable time where systems are concerned. No matter how dangerous or safe a company is, or how big or small the risks are, it's still important to make sure that information passes from and to the right people at the right time.
I think I remembered asking you on patreon about doing this one, quite a while ago! You definitely had a lot in front of you beforehand, but I appreciate you very much again for this. 🙏
Tharos was later renamed Transocean Marianas, in 2009 it was damaged by Hurricane Ida while drilling the Macondo well and replaced by Deepwater Horizon. And thus began another unimaginable tragedy.
That vessel has a history of proximity to tragedy. Wonder if safety conditions aboard Transocean Marianas were better than Deepwater Horizon, had it not been damaged and replaced would it have not had the same catastrophe? Or would the same thing have likely happened?
FYI, the CEO of Occidental was Armand Hammer, great-grandfather of actor Armie Hammer who was named after him. I'd never of heard the younger Armie until sexual assault allegations were brought up. The rig and safety protocols were incredibly poorly designed, for maximum efficiency at the expense of safety. Not mentioned was that safety instructions were to remain in the cafeteria pending evacuation by helicopter. The men that survived were the ones who didn't follow those procedures, because it would have meant certain death.
Piper Alpha was a truly horrific disaster, just looking at the photos of the conflagration is enough to feel that horror, and the account by the Piper's survivor is absolutely chilling.
Shedding light on such tragedies that many of us had never heard of before is so valuable. And to the viewers who comment, it's so nice to see positive, encouraging, and compassionate comments. This channel brings people together. Thank you, FH, for the excellent work you do.
I remember this. It hit close to home, as my dad worked in the oilfield offshore (west Africa at the time). My husband currently does so in the Gulf of Mexico, though he'd love to get into something better. My heart aches for the families and the survivors.
I knew of this disaster, I remember seeing the visuals of it on TV at the time during the news. But never actually knew exactly what happened. Until now. Great little mini doc there.
Yep! Most boring/ cheap of all industrial Safety I used to sell , but most important. Hard to hold people’s attention training on loto until you see the result of not using it
One of those incidents where literally anything that could go wrong went wrong. My dad was an engineer for Esso at the time and he said right after this happened everybody in the oil and gas industry freaked and immediately started implementing extra safety measures on all their rigs.
I was at school near Aberdeen with other oil workers kids and it was an awful time filled with stories of lucky escapes due to not being on the rig at the time and others who had lost their dads. Dreadful. Even those who had nothing to do with the Piper field felt terrible
God, this is truly horrifying. I thought the Byford Dolphin explosive decompression was none chilling, another drilling rig accident in the 80s, but this takes the cake.
I am a translator and one of my work required me to translate the course of events in Piper Alpha, as the incident was cited as one of the examples why workers must follow procedures and to stop work when they deemed that it is unsafe (instead of waiting on for orders from their supervisors). It was just one paperwork, one tag missed, and it cost so many lives ... I was stressed out during the process of translating, couldn't get it off my mind for months. Thank you for the video, it brought so many memories.
To give some more information. There was actually a pump and its associated safety valve under maintenance that day. The pump had the maintenance completed, the valve, in a separate area had not and it was this that had the poorly fitted flange. The reason the paperwork was not found was because the permitry paperwork was kept in boxes according to the area of the rig the item was in rather than the systems. Ideally both permits to work should've been tied together as the systems were co-dependent. But they weren't. This also influenced the onshore gas industry as well as the offshore industry and led to the creation of the Safe Control of Operations processes.
There’s a pretty big error in this - atleast an error in presentation. You’ve depicted the critical issue being down to the fact that the paperwork wasn’t handed directly to someone but as you likely saw investigating this incident thoroughly, the incident report by Lord Cullen explains that the shift leader indeed conferred with the day counterpart as was his duty. The real issue with the paperwork was down to the fact that the condensate pump and its safety valve were situated separately on two distinct decks on the accident rig. There was recovered in the debris miraculously BOTH work orders just located in the other location as the ops manager. The fact that he signed back into service the alternate means he followed protocol, but the paper was not in the room he was in. Thus, the paperwork was unavailable and due to the developing unproductive shutdown threat looming, the haste led to a lack of thoroughness searching in another area for the work order. You’ve made it sound like a breach of duty. That’s not the case. And even still, you’ve neglected that in normal circumstances this still doesn’t lead to disaster directly. It was down to the fact that a simple, loosely fitted flat disk tightened by hand the report chalks up to the issue. Even during maintenance you’d expect pipe tightening which likely wouldn’t have led to the cascade of failures.
I always look forward to your latest episodes. You cover these disasters in such detail--it is amazing how many of them were caused by oversight and miscommunication. Well done.
I remember when this happened! I was a U.S. Marine stationed in Okinawa Japan. We were all glued to the tv when it was on the news as nothing like this had ever happened that we were aware of. As U.S. Marines, one part of our boot camp training is learning how to step off of high surfaces and falling into deep water. I would have thought that they would teach that to all oil platform workers, and have it as part of their training. It was a very tragic situation that was overshadowed a couple of years later when they sent us to the first Gulf War (Desert Shield/Storm) to fight in the oil fields of Kuwait.
Really well presented and factual. I used the Piper Alpha disater for years for students on the NEBOSH Certificate course. A list of errors starting with a missing Permit to Work sheet and the failure to shut down the other rigs feeding into the pipeline that led to tragedy.
Rest in peace to the 167 lives lost that day and condolences to their families and friends as well and much respect to the survivors and to the search and rescue teams.😞🙏
Fascinating indeed. Aside from the combination of factors that frequently accompanies disaster, what struck the most horror in me was the failure of the repairman to make sure the night supervisor knew of the out of service pump. That guy, more than any other factor, was the cause.
The disaster is analysed and described much more accurately here : th-cam.com/video/S9h8MKG88_U/w-d-xo.html There were a lot of failures that contributed to the chain of events that led to the disaster. The night supervisor was part of the chain but he was not the cause - not on his own.
@@f114163Absolutely correct. It was a disaster waiting to happen, numerous modifications to the rig making it unsafe, poor safety culture in the company. The 'guy making the repair' was almost incidental.
That survivor's story is the stuff of nightmares. Just the image of him helping a nearby survivor and chatting with him while looking for help only to realize he was already dead...
Jeez, I love your channel and never miss an episode. This one messed me up though. I really don’t know why , but this fifty year old man started crying while watching.
Didn’t expect to hear about Piper Alpha on a channel like this! Honestly, it makes me happy to see the story being shared - people need to know what happened here. An engineering teacher I used to have apparently was teaching a class not long after the disaster, and he said it was the most quiet he’d ever seen a class room, the north east of Scotland used to live and breathe oil and gas. Scarily enough, an old neighbour of mine was close to being posted there, said that a friend of his took the job instead because he wanted the money for his family, don’t know if he survived though.
I love listening to these and finding the exact point where something bad would happen. "He filed the necessary paperwork to let the next shift know that pipe A should not be used under _any_ circumstance." Ah... it's going to be used, isn't it.
My grandfather Robert worked on this oil rig. He was on the sister rig Piper Bravo at the time of the explosion. My mother told me that after hearing the news my mother and my grandmother stayed up until they got a phone call. At the time there were many friends and colleagues as well as some of the people that were responsible for training him who were on Piper Alpha and unfortunately did not survive. I was told after the fact he had to go to many funerals in very quick succession. My grandfather never really spoke about that day afterwards. I think he just didn't want to recall all of the friends that he lost. The explosion was entirely preventable had certain people on the rig followed proper procedure and the loss of life was unnecessary. We were really blessed that grandad was okay, apparently he often worked on Piper Alpha and just happened to be working on the sister rig at the time. Lucky circumstance for sure. We don't know if he saw the explosion happen or how he found out about the explosion. I'd imagine rescue attempts were quite challenging, I was told the only way they could feasibly and reliably get out to the rig is by helicopter. My grandad was not perfect, he drank quite excessively (probably to forget struggles) and argued a lot but he was really a great man. Unfortunately when I was really young he was working out in Thailand on an oil rig and had a heart attack, which he recovered from. He really wanted to fly over to see me again and to meet my younger brother but unfortunately he had a medical episode (I believe it was a second heart attack or a stroke) and died in Thailand. He really loved both Scotland and Thailand, especially Thailand. He thought it was the world's most beautiful country and spoke very fondly about it. I'm not sure what happened with his remains, I'll have to ask later, but I'm assuming he was laid to rest in a place that he loved.
I'm horrified that the other rigs kept of pumping fuel into the fire just because they weren’t sure if they had the authority to stop without getting in trouble.
My cousin was killed on this, i remember watching it with my mum and the call she received a few days later from my aunt with the grim news. Awful memory.
My parents knew about this disaster (my dad's worked as a civil engineer on oil platforms for a few decades) and when they were up in Aberdeen during the Covid crisis they found a memorial over there to them. Funnily enough, this was the year they had headed to Australia which was having its own issues with this and where me and my siblings were eventually born.
I took a public speaking course at a junior college during spring 2020 which began in person but finished remotely. One of my classmates was here in California studying abroad from Norway. He had to go back to Norway when the pandemic hit and he still attended class regularly even though it was 10:30 pm for him. His final speech for class was a passionate persuasive argument against more drilling in the North Sea. He didn't mention the numerous disasters such as this one but he did make a very convincing case against the drilling of more wells and building of off shore rigs.
As the safety officer for my branch I wanted to scream at the procedures. This is the perfect example of why "lock out tag out" is SO IMPORTANT. If the engineers had left a simple paper tag on the pump that said "In maintenance. Do not use" this entire thing could've been avoided!
If you are involved in industrial safety and are interested in this disaster you might listen to this : th-cam.com/video/S9h8MKG88_U/w-d-xo.html There was much more to the chain of events that lead to this disaster than the video described.
@@f114163 Thanks! I was thinking of using this disaster as a toolbox talk for lockout/tagout procedures, so the extra information is greatly appreciated.
They did leave a sign on the pump that said "Do Not Use", they just did not leave anything saying why so a supervisor had to decide whether to shut down all the rigs in the Piper field at a cost of tens of millions or to try the pump and see if it works. In the oil industry you never go against money.
In disasters like these all it takes is one mistake. Its such a tragedy that only after hundreds of people die so we see the flaws in safety procedures and stuff. It must be so hard to work in an environment where you have to be so vigilant. One mistake is all it takes...
Having worked in major manufacturing industry, I learned that working in a dangerous environment and understanding this horrible accident was caused by human and systemic error is similar to what the war vets I worked with told me. In the end, they fought to save each other. That was their driving ambition. Not being clear to the next shift on the natural gas pump concern was like not warning your buddies the enemy was within the perimeter. Where I worked, we locked out and dangerous and malfunctioning equipment so it could not be used without the person with the combo unlocking it. They would call you home in the middle of the night to unlock if necessary but no one breached that protocol. The shift would know what was unsafe.
I’m surprised anyone survived in 80s Britain and live to tell the tale. I remember when younger there was always some carnage or another , some disaster, some terrible conflict , some lunatic killer , some major fire played out on the tv being watched by the adults.
"Fire in the night" about this incident is one of the best documentaries I've ever seen. Should be the first Google result on the video tab for "fire in the night 2013 x264 vk"
This was a disaster wrapped in a disaster. The initial fire was bad enough, but as it spread it cooked high pressure lines still flowing with crude oil containing a high percentage of methane and condensates, and they burst... The crew quarters compartment could not be evacuated.
My best friend worked for Occidental then, in the US. I was in the industry on the information side. This was an incredibly sad accident! I remember her telling me about Armand Hammer. Unbelievable tale. Thank you for sharing this
I read several books about this incident as preparation for writing a school report on the Piper Alpha Disaster. While the Deepwater Horizon received a lot more attention (and probably rightly so), this is the one that truly demonstrates the danger of offshore activities.
I was very young when this disaster happened, but I remember it as vividly today as the day I first heard of it. But I never knew that it happened as quickly as it did
Need I say, if your oil platform is pumping oil to another platform that is on fire, and you are afraid to stop pumping, your supervisors should spend the rest of their lives in prison.
Genuinely sounds like some kind of Final Destination set up. That complete domino effect of minor errors which individually would not have caused much issue turning into a complete disaster.
Thoroughly enjoy watching your video clips. They are crafted with a professional touch, are informative and respectful to the catastrophe(s) being shown. Very well done-keep up the outstanding work/production of your videos.
It's just dumb engineering and over-reliance on flimsy paperwork. There should've been warning lights above each pipe that could be turned on by an engineer when it was dangerous to use. I guess we only learn through failure, though.
@@bugjams There should have been a lot of things, but back then, systems were much more flimsy and reliant on operator consciencious-ness, rather than fail-safe methods. :(
It's always fascinating how there are a combination of events that contribute to a disaster. Like the pump failing when the other was out of commission, the siting of the pumps, the fire suppression system being unavailable for maintenance. A terrible, terrible event.
I saw the documentary Fire in the Night about this disaster and it was tremendous. The one thing that was really amazing to hear was the one man who came across a dead man in the water and despite all that he had survived he refused to take the man's life jacket and use it for himself. The wherewithal to make that decision in that moment is pretty amazing. Roy Carey is his name and his story of how he survived is just one of the incredible stories the documentary covers.
The thought of being so shell-shocked from the fire and from the explosion that you don't realize that the man you're trying to find rescue with is dead. What a brutal account to retell.
While I’m sure it was a horrifying discovery for the survivor, it was meant to be that the dead man’s body served the purpose of saving the life of another. That’s more than most of us have the chance to do while we live and it would have been comforting to me, if I were a relative, to know that his death wasn’t a complete waste.
You may not appreciate this, and it's kind of irrelevant. But I had a great uncle that was a commander of a PT boat in the Pacific during world war II. An American PT boat. PT boats had 14 men on them and out there was a very dangerous place for him as the Japanese had mined all around all those islands in the shallow Waters where the where the boats regularly moved. Anyways his boat one night hit a mine and blew a part and he spent 9 hours that night clinging to a piece of wooden wreckage listening to his men screaming bloody murder from injuries and like eight of them were eating alive by sharks. He was the only man that survived they found him floating unconscious on a broken piece of wood the next morning. It was not a story he was fond of telling and and the the obvious pain from here and the men that he commanded and lived with and the trauma from it definitely affected him until his death more than 70 years later. PTSD is just unimaginable how deeply it affects people. Haunting
@@philbert006
Not irrelevant at all. He was at once a very lucky and a very unlucky man.
@@Lucinda_Jackson yes indeed. Great Tom. He was my great uncle. A wonderful man full of life and intelligence. I was fascinated by him and stories my mom told me about him when I was young. So many people have similar stories, things in life that affected them in ways they never come to understand. It goes to show that humans are resilient in ways beyond comprehension and fragile as a spring flower all at once. Life is truly amazing.
@@philbert006
I completely agree. You were blessed to have such an example in your life.
My late step-father Hamish was the medical examiner at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary when this happened, he was the guy who determined the cause of death. He didn’t talk about the Piper Alpha often, but when he did he told me it was the reason he stopped being an ME, that a lot of the bodies weren’t intact, and it left him with PTSD, horrible depression and alcoholism. Any time I visit Hazlehead Park I go to the Piper Alpha memorial, I think of Hamish. He eventually took his life at 56, it was just too much to live with.
If anyone is ever up this way visiting Aberdeen I’d recommend visiting Hazlehead, it’s a beautiful memorial.
Edit: thanks to everyone in the replies for letting me speak about Hamish, he died a decade ago but being able to speak about him has really helped in a way. I still grieve him but understand his mental suffering was just too severe, so being able to speak about our fond memories has teared me up in a good way.
I’m sorry about your step-father. I admire your ability to find comfort and see the beauty in the memorial and the surrounding park. 💕
@@Lucinda_Jackson always gives me comfort, sometimes talk to the memorial (we took his ashes back to Skye to be scattered) as it’s the closest to me, Skye is west coast and I’m east coast, so it gives me some comfort when I just wanna say hello and talk about life. Maybe looks weird to people, but it gives me some comfort ❤
@@ZombieSazza
Not weird at all and it shows an emotional maturity that mist don’t possess. I’m happy for you that you have a place to visit and feel close.
what becomes too much to live with, is not the deaths that have occurred, although the death wakes people up to reality. no, what becomes too much to bear is that the human race continues to trade everything sacred, to continue pumping oil from the depths of Mother Earth's guts. As a human being, you have or had a connection with mother Earth. She gives you life.. your body is a biological organic demonstration of that fact. And you KNOW deep deep down into the pits of your conscience.. that the way human beings live is wrong, it's barbaric, it' destroys life. THAT'S why suicide is a pandemic.. and has been ignored, of course. Part and parcel of the human species BLINDNESS.
Sorry for your loss. People stigmatize PTSD and expect us guys to just take it. But until youve seen people chopped up from war or accidents you just have no idea. That shit will stay in your brain forever. You see it when youre sleeping, when youre awake, when your talking to your kids...people dont get it and they dont care, like, at all.
Out of all FH videos, I think this is one that's shocked me the most. Especially the parts about the 6 survivors perishing in the boat and the survivor who didn't realise the fate of the person he clung onto. I'm not surprised so many were affected by this afterwards.
me too. something about it being a metal island full of fuel, consuming itself and everyone on it. just horrifying. almost like we turned ourselves into ants and set fire to our colony
Me too! It is terrifying and sad. Those poor people couldn’t win for loosing! Everywhere they turned something bad happened.
Not to mention 2 more of the rescue boat's crewmen also died as well. The only survivor from that boat was it's driver, Mr. Ian Letham
Yeah, the destruction of the rescue boat and almost everyone in her was a truly horrific surprise. It also was the point, IIRC, there were no more rescue attempts because the situation was just too dangerous.
Didn't shock me cause you spoiled half the story
I knew a survivor from this disaster, Keith Cunningham, a diver on the rig. He was working as Generator Mechanic/Dive Master for the Lady Jenny 5 working on the Red Sea when I met him.
Keith was one of the best divers I ever met and I learned a lot just watching him on a dive. His ability to move so effortlessly through the water made me copy everything he did.
When he saw the dive suit I brought with me, he said it wasn’t adequate for the Red Sea and he lent me a spare wetsuit. After a couple of dives, I realized how miserable I would have been if he hadn’t shown some kindness to a rookie diver.
He was also the most Zen person I’ve known in my 64 years on this planet. Always soft spoken, calm, and collected.
I was a Yank living in Yorkshire when the disaster happened. Had no idea I would ever know someone who had gone through it.
The only reason I knew about it was from the acting skipper of the boat…we were talking on the bridge about random stuff and I mentioned how Keith was the most calm person I ever met.
That’s when he told me that Keith was one of the survivors. I never brought it up to Keith as I figured if he wanted to talk about it he would.
He passed away a few years back. 2014 I believe. I’m glad I got to know him.
That's beautiful, I am so glad you got to know such a wonderful person.
It seems incredulous that no-one thought putting a sign directly on equipment to indicate it was out of order might be a good idea.
Normally the pump is isolated at the motor control centre with several padlocks.Clearly not done
Seriously, an "out of order" sign is usually a staple for reasons just like this.
Right if you're not going to go the whole hog and get a message to the man that needs to know the very least you should do is make it impossible to miss that something is out of order.
That's the first thing that came into my mind! Even if that's not protocol, taping a piece of paper with the words "OUT OF ORDER" or "DO NOT USE" on something that should not be used usually serves the purpose quite well!
Lock Out/Tag Out should be a thing everywhere.
My cousin was a derrick man on this rig.. He was on holiday at the time and they flew him home and he helped cap the fires with red adair.. Said it was horrible to see.. He lost a lot of friends.. Such a tragedy
Was that sea pun done perpously XD
@@chaoticcatartist learn to spell, kid
@@chaoticcatartist I'm not sure you're best qualified to comment on someone else's spelling.
@@chaoticcatartist was that 'perpously' pun done purposely?
@@MsWaggydog i wasnt tryna correct them i just thought it was funny. And im not the best at spelling/typing and thats what it auto corrected it too
My dad was working on a nearby support vessel. He once told me about pulling people out of the water and their skin coming away. I've never asked him about it ever again.
This gave me chills...
Why would you bring it up then? Just thought it was cool to horrify more people?
@@james3440 Same reason they made a video about it I guess. Why are you here if you didn't want to learn?
Fire rescue is always so grim. I envy the fortitude of firefighters worldwide. Respect to your pa.
@@james3440 Because unlike you, many people want to know history so mistakes are not repeated.
Two of my uncles died in this disaster and one survived. A lot of my family worked on this rig. The repercussions were still being felt heavily in 1998
🙏😥
One of my uncles died too, from Aberdeen.
@@1cbrracer we are all from Leven in Fife. Sorry to hear that. 🙏
Condolences extended.
@@grmpEqweer thank you.
Every time I have to lock onto multiple isolation permit stations just to get a simple job done I remember that it was incidents like this that prompted such byzantine procedures. Our safety is bought with the lives of many workers before us.
Very true and the utter madness is companies and governments trying to get rid of, waterdown or sidestep these procedures.
I think everything should have work permits like we did in my old factory. If they had, the pump, the pipes, and the safety valve, all being part of the same 'unit,' would have their permits, notes, tags, locks, etc. stored in the same box labeled "X Assembly Unit." So, if you wanted to start, say, Press 1, but the feed bin for Press 1 (in the feed room) was inop, you'd be able to see this easily.
I grew up with a safety officer..its hard to explain how far we have come..while seeing how far we need to go
@@Scorpioncactusflower Having it together is a good system, but in this case, the work permit went missing, I believe, altho this docu says it was left on a desk. We'll never know, as the entire platform was destroyed.
Guidelines are written in pencil, regulations are written in blood.
One of a series of huge disasters in Britain in the mid-late 80s. Bradford City, Zeebrugge, Lockerbie, Kings Cross, Hillsborough... it seemed as though every other week, something terrible happened.
Yep, clapped out & inadequate infrastructure and processes. There are always going to be safety issues, but that was a particularly bad time.
Not to mention a particularly strong anti-regulation mentality.
It was one one the reasons why Lloyds Re-Insurance tanked, taking many "names" with it.
Lessons thus learned, but it didn't beat 1974 for the record of global disasters; Joelma, Fifi, Kentucky Super Outbreak, Flixborough.
Hungerford, The Marchioness, Clapham Junction, the Great Storm. I was only a kid back then, but I remember being very aware of all of them.
My Dad, a structural engineer, was on leave that week in Bristol with my Mum. His best friend Christopher also worked there and was on shift. He was one of the lucky people on the life boat, but clearly remembers the burning fireballs. Mum insisted Dad stop working on the platforms after this and indeed he never returned. The CEO of the company who owned Piper Alpha was a terrible person who never faced repercussions.
The CEO should not have emerged unscathed from this horrible, tragic incident. So unfair.
Bastards. They owe. Make them pay.
@@twistoffate4791 too right. I think they did receive compensation but it wasn't much and the inquiry I would argue blamed the wrong people.
Just another friendly reminder that the rich are playing the same game we play with different rules.
@@PaulRudd1941 Nailed it!👍
God, more than once in this video I thought “just when I thought this can’t get any worse.” What a catastrophe. Special condolences to the rescue workers of the Sandhaven who died gallantly trying to save others.
It was a case of 'everything that could go wrong, did go wrong '. When the control room was destroyed, the fireproof walls turned into shrapnel, and the controls to the fire suppression system were destroyed.
I worked in that business at that time. Off shore. As a telex operator for a pipe-laying company which at the moment of the accident happened to work in the North Sea. Many of my collegues had friends, family working in the oil industry too. Some of those people on board of Piper-Alpha. Right after the disaster happened, the telexes went berserk. Many a collegue's face went pale as a sheet. Our ship stopped their work and went to the location of Piper-Alpha to see if they could offer any help. But there was nothing they could do. It was a horrifying an sad time.
@@earlsworth7952what an odd thing to say about a disaster
Great comment from the op such a shame nothing could be done
@neiloldfield8661 I'm not sure I even meant to say anything... might be a typo.
@@earlsworth7952 ahh right mate thought you were mocking it 👍
@@neiloldfield8661 No sir. It was a sad story, and I feel bad for everyone involved. 😞
@@earlsworth7952 💯
The name of this channel, Fascinating Horror, is perfect to describe the story of Piper Alpha. Not only is it one of those rare disasters where a bad situation is magnified by a series of coincidences that made it God awful but it also features a hindrance of response in that oil continued to be pumped into the inferno as opposed to an immediate cutoff. The story of the rescue boat and the survivors they pulled from the water being killed by a subsequent explosion is a unique form of nightmare.
Several years after the disaster, I was working at a persons property and they began chatting. The gentleman showed me his work. His job was working for oil producers and their North Sea rigs. He brought some paperwork and it was incredible - stunning complex engineering drawings of plumbing systems for oil rigs. Each rig system had pages and pages of it. The drawings were coloured in a pastel palette to differentiate each pipe loop. This gentlemans job was to plan rig maintenance. In particular, plumbing maintenance. He showed me how just one task would essentially change parameters within the plumbing and so each move had to be worked out, plotted, fully written out in vast detail and then he would move to the next step.
Because of my familiarity with the disaster, I could see just how involved and important maintenance schedules are on a rig. I'll be honest and admit that the whole responsibility on this gentlemans shoulders blew me away. Every single rig workers life depended upon this gentleman getting everything correct.
I vividly remember this. I was painting T-shirts with my brother when the news broke. I live in Glasgow, so local television was quick to spring into action. Only when you saw the rig ablaze, that you realised how bad it was. It's an absolute horror made real. It could be seen from Aberdeen!!!!! I worked with a guy whose son died. He fought for regulation until his death. I had read that the escaping gas was at such a high pressure, that the friction of it escaping ignited it. Machinery screaming before it explodes in flames!!
That’s crazy it could be seen 150 miles away
You saw it 150 miles away when you can only see 15 miles out at sea? Ermmm, the math doesn't work out here 😂
I lived and worked in the oil industry at this time, the first you knew was multiple helicopters flying overhead in the early hours, I just knew something had gone badly wrong. I went to work, I worked with a major oil company, the tension was palpable, we were all asked to donate blood, sadly we were not needed. My partner worked on the Tharos, it couldn't get to close as it's a dive support vessel and packed with tons of bottles of gases, they did try though, when he arrived back home his face looked like he had bad sunburn, that's how hot it was and how close they tried to get. The majority of fatalities were in the accommodation module, those who went against health and safety procedures were the only ones who survived. God bless ever single one of their souls.
How did breaking the health and safety regulations help them survive?
@@davidlittle611 The most common theoretical scenario for a platform evacuation involved everyone mustering in the accommodation block and waiting for helicopters to take everyone off. The few managers and supervisors who survived the destruction of the control room in the initial blast followed this scenario. The heat and smoke prevented any helicopter rescues and the life boats were mostly unreachable, so the survivors were the ones who escaped the platform by any means necessary, which was not standard practice.
@@Skyhawk1998 oh I see. Yeah I’d of thrown out the regulations too. There’s no one size fits all rule for anything
I've heard that crew members on aircraft or ships nearly an entire kilometer away could feel the heat _through the hull of their vessels,_ that's genuinely insane to think about
@@davidlittle611 IIRC emergency protocol was to take shelter in the accommodation block, because it was the (deliberately designed) most robust part of Alpha and would remain intact beyond other parts of the platform. This meant, I have read, that when the platform collapsed, the accommodation block was still mostly intact and there were people alive within. Those who sought either shelter or escape beyond the block thus had a higher chance of surviving. Still being alive inside the acc. block when it went beneath the waves is nightmare fuel.
I've seen a couple of documentaries on Piper Alpha and the contrast between the enormous intact platform and what remnants were visible on the sea's surface the next day were chilling.
I remember seeing this unfold on TV as a kid off sick from school.
More importantly, as a facilities worker with an interest in health and safety, I use this as an example of why recordkeeping and logging stuff is SO important. It's not just pen-pushing -- it's to protect you and everyone else around you.
As an admin in the NHS - it always infuriates me when people complain about 'paperpushers' and all the rigmarole you have to go through to get anything done (and that we should be fired because we're uselessly taking up funding etc). This is why. It's why admin record everything and anything they can get their hands on.
I also used this for years as a case study when training Internal Quality Auditors, as a case where one 'stupid' piece of paper caused a chain of events that resulted in this horror. I used to draw a flow chart of the events starting with the missing 'work permit', without telling the trainees what it related to. As each step unfolds they cotton on to where it ultimately leads and the shocked realisation is very good at getting across that everything is important in its' own way. Interesting to find someone else that uses it, it really is an amazing case study. (I don't mean 'amazing' in a good way, just a very 'easy to explain' way).
I remember this so clearly.a number of years ago.a documentary was made on this for the anniversary. It was heartbreaking to hear some of the survivors stories. All of them have p.t.s.d. And the guilt of survival and friends didn’t
It was called 'Fire in the Night'
I spoke to a guy whose job it was to make the rigs a lot safer after this disaster. They had fit a new generator that would provide power, lighting and power to the fire system.
He said that the generator was in the middle of a process room and the only way to get to it was to walk through a pitch black room and start it manually with a pull cord. When you did start the generator it started with a very loud bang (250dbl) and the operations manager didn't know what the problem with this system was and that the men didn't need drilling on the procedure until it was put to him this way:
"You'll have 200 men with memories of piper alpha standing at the muster station 200ft above sea level during a power shutdown and they will hear a very very loud explosion. What do you think they are going to do when they hear it?"
After that they put the shutdown practice drill as a monthly thing.
im near a sewage pump station and yeah, the fking generator is loud as hell
They use cartridges to start those generators, they are like massive shotgun cartridges that spin the motor to start it up. In an enclosed environment with lots of metal an already loud noise gets amplified all to hell.
How sad for all of those people. I'm especially saddened to think of the six people that survived the blast and fire, survived jumping into the ocean while avoiding debris, only to have been killed after they climbed aboard the rescue boat.
There were 3 rescue guys on that boat and 6 people they picked up. One rescue guy got blasted away from the boat by the explosion and survived. He was the only one.
@@Scorpioncactusflower He was the boat's driver if anyone is curious, Ian Letham
I was about to turn 5 years old when this happened and my dad was a roughneck working this field and had worked this rig. The disaster changed our lives, I don't think he ever liked his job but he actively hated it after this (understandably) and descended into alcoholism. He lost friends in the most horrific way and has never gotten over it.
He continued to work in the industry until retirement and actively encouraged his coworkers to ignore messages from gaffers, even him, in a disaster situation if they made no sense (ie staying in accommodation block to await rescue and ending up trapped). As far as I recall, all the survivors from this disaster broke the 'rules' and ignored orders to stay put. He also kept much more of a distance from his co-workers and made no more friends incase something like that happened again.
Horrible, horrible incident which should never have happened and ruined thousands of lives forever. I hope its never forgotten.
I'm so sorry for him and for you, his family. I cannot imagine how hard it was.
lol
" to ignore messages from gaffers, even him, in a disaster situation if they made no sense (ie staying in accommodation block to await rescue and ending up trapped)"
What an ugly reality and what an act of caring. "I may have to send you a message that is not in your best interest for the sake of keeping my job, but I need you to understand that for your own good, it should be ignored."
I learned something new today (aside from this horrible tragedy) you’re not supposed to jump into the water with a life jacket.
Not from many, many, many stories up, no. Though, you're in danger, either way.
Me too. I also learned the following.
The IMO SOLAS training manual (3.2) has guidelines for the use of lifejackets, which include a recommended maximum height of 4.5m for jumping into the water with a lifejacket on. The guidelines also instruct the user to: hold your nose and cover your mouth with your left hand.
Wow I really feel for the guys on that rig. A complete tragedy. RIP to all those who didn't make it and to anyone left alive after this agony, I'm really sorry and I wish you all the best. Freaking perfect narration, as usual...Thank you Fascinating Horror, bringing the past to life
My grandfather worked on Piper Alpha in the permit office and thankfully retired around '86 or '87. I know a survivor through my parents and when I've talked to him you can tell it has cast a huge shadow over his life since.
The only silver lining is that offshore safety has come a long way since then and I experienced this first hand having spent a few recent years offshore.
RIP to those that never made it back
what people prob don't realise but thanks to things like this Aberdeen hospital is considered the world leader in training and treating oil rig related injuries. my father was until just before this incident a helicopter pilot for british airways helicopter stationed in Aberdeen And Shetland. he was also search and rescue qualified. He would tell me that if you weren't properly protected the survival time in the north sea was about 5 min before you froze to death. Sadly he and my mum lost a lot of friends due to helicopter accidents. including one when the tail of the helicoper clipped a crane, causing it to drop onto the helo pad then fell over the side. when they recovered the wreckage they two pilots where still strapped in, they had no chance to escape. RIP to all the brave men who died working and servicing the North Sea Rigs.
I was in training to go offshore for the very first time on the Rowan Gorilla VI jack up rig…. The first thing I was shown was a video of the Piper Alpha burning. Then I was shown helicopters falling off the helideck with people onboard, etc etc. It hit me what a dangerous occupation I was taking on. And my career offshore ended the day cougar 491 crashed into the sea, killing 17 of my buddies. I had just been brought out there by the same chopper. That was the day I decided money was not everything and I have worked on land ever since. My nerves got the better of me.
Maybe it wasn't so much your nerves getting the better of you & more like your heart & intelligence working together to steer you in a safer direction! Straight up guardian angel kinda stuff! Stay safe; it's obvious your presence here is important! Peace
@@selenepickins4874 ❤️❤️❤️ thanks for that. What a much nicer way to think about it. That kind of stuff messes with your head.
@@angelawhite2022 it does indeed. Be safe & well.❤
Pragmatic take here: I'd rather have a chopper pilot comfortable and confidant in the environment they're working in. Listening to your "nerves" may have saved several lives, including your own.
I can fully understand your decision, rig work is pretty much a job that only men and women with an absolute lack of fear of death take
There's a lot that went wrong here, but I think a big lesson is if you have a piece of paperwork that basically says, "Don't push this button or we all die." You make damn sure that gets to the right person and don't just leave it nearby and assume someone will see it.
A very large brightly colored "Out of Service" sign on the equipment proper could've done wonders.
A lock. Not a sign, a lock with a reference number for the file explaining why it's locked.
@@DrAngryMongoose that is proper lockout tag out procedure nowadays. You lock the thing so it physically won't work and leave a big colorful sign explaining why.
Very true, that sentence alone would immediately convey the stakes to anyone reading it
Thank you for the work you do with this channel by telling the stories that may not be well known to the world.
I use this incident as an example in safety training presentations of the importance of lockout-tagout
The entire time I was thinking "why the fuck wasn't this tagged out?"
Was loto standard practice in 1988? Only reason I can think of for not doing it.
@@patientallison It's a little more complex with what happened to the missing paperwork on Piper Alpha - pretty much the issue was that all maintenance in one section was kept together, and paperwork for another section was kept together - problem is when issues cross over - people were looking at paperwork for why the generator was out of order and couldn't find it - the paperwork for the PIPE was in a different location. That was how they filed stuff back then (I might be misremembering, it's been a while since I read up / watched documentaries on this disaster)
@@patientallison lockout tagout was established in the U.S. in 1982, but I'm not sure about British standards. Occidental is a U.S. based company but Piper Alpha was operating in British territory I believe.
@@AlphaCid85 Established in 1982 but not put in to practice in the US until 1989. It would be standard in the UK by 1994.
My grandfather was a radio operator that night. He was one of the people coordinating the rescue effort. I have his transcriptions from the night but I've never looked at them. Not sure if I ever will.
Through the 90s and 00s I used to run training programs for Internal Quality Auditors, and I used the Piper Alpha as a case study on how one missed bit of paper can start a chain of events that cannot be imagined. People generally don't like paperwork and miss things regularly, and in some situations it doesn't really matter but unless we check, re-check and re-check again, we never know when that one bit of information, one form, one data entry on a computer, could set of a train of events that is disastrous. I worked in the field of medical devices, so we were still talking life/death situations, albeit in a completely different patient-based way.
I remember seeing the Piper Alpha disaster on the news.
I was today years old when I learned it had been replaced with a more modern platform, with a pleasingly sequential name.
I’m such a Fascinating Horror geek, I’m always keen to check on recent uploads to this channel. No one does it like you, bud. Your cadence, delivery, background music, the details and information you provide is truly fascinating. Thanks for the continued hard work and research :)
You have captured my thoughts and 🙏 thanks 👍
My Dad worked on the Buchan Alpha, another rig nearby, at the time. I was only 5 when the disaster happened so I didn't know enough to really worry at the time but I do remember seeing oil rigs on the news and asking if it was Daddy's they were talking about. All I remember my Dad saying about it at the time was that he knew some people on the Piper Alpha, I don't remember if he said they had survived or not.
Watching this now was a gut punch, realising how easily it could have been my Dad jumping into the North Sea, talking to dead men.
A lot of terrible accidents seem to be caused by inadequate procedures over shift-changes.
I study Chemical Engineering and sadly this is all too common
Yep, shift change is a particularly vulnerable time where systems are concerned. No matter how dangerous or safe a company is, or how big or small the risks are, it's still important to make sure that information passes from and to the right people at the right time.
That was a hard line to hear, the 6 men just rescued plus the 2 rescuers died. Shit, what kind of savage luck is that
I think I remembered asking you on patreon about doing this one, quite a while ago! You definitely had a lot in front of you beforehand, but I appreciate you very much again for this. 🙏
Tharos was later renamed Transocean Marianas, in 2009 it was damaged by Hurricane Ida while drilling the Macondo well and replaced by Deepwater Horizon. And thus began another unimaginable tragedy.
Both hilarious but also OOF
That vessel has a history of proximity to tragedy. Wonder if safety conditions aboard Transocean Marianas were better than Deepwater Horizon, had it not been damaged and replaced would it have not had the same catastrophe? Or would the same thing have likely happened?
Unlikely, the day of the Blowout, I shit you not, Deep Water Horizon was getting commended for their safety record. That well was a monster.
FYI, the CEO of Occidental was Armand Hammer, great-grandfather of actor Armie Hammer who was named after him. I'd never of heard the younger Armie until sexual assault allegations were brought up. The rig and safety protocols were incredibly poorly designed, for maximum efficiency at the expense of safety.
Not mentioned was that safety instructions were to remain in the cafeteria pending evacuation by helicopter. The men that survived were the ones who didn't follow those procedures, because it would have meant certain death.
Have you seen anything about the string of murder that happened to go on while he was in the area? After all his cannibal talk I don’t doubt it at all
@@brettwalker2723 It's baking soda in a lot of places.
@@PaleHorseShabuShabu not in Europe, as much as I know
TIL.
Never heard of Armie Hammer. Actually related to the baking soda company?
I'm from Aberdeen. This disaster had a massive impact on our city. It still does.
Piper Alpha was a truly horrific disaster, just looking at the photos of the conflagration is enough to feel that horror, and the account by the Piper's survivor is absolutely chilling.
Shedding light on such tragedies that many of us had never heard of before is so valuable. And to the viewers who comment, it's so nice to see positive, encouraging, and compassionate comments. This channel brings people together. Thank you, FH, for the excellent work you do.
I remember this. It hit close to home, as my dad worked in the oilfield offshore (west Africa at the time). My husband currently does so in the Gulf of Mexico, though he'd love to get into something better. My heart aches for the families and the survivors.
I knew of this disaster, I remember seeing the visuals of it on TV at the time during the news. But never actually knew exactly what happened.
Until now.
Great little mini doc there.
Holy. The survivor testimony is incredibly powerful. Thank you for including it, I feel privileged to bear witness to such a profoundly drastic story.
Stuff like this is why the little class on Lock-out/ Tag-out procedures is so important and why some companies make you take it over and over.
Yep! Most boring/ cheap of all industrial Safety I used to sell , but most important. Hard to hold people’s attention training on loto until you see the result of not using it
This accident is the reason LOTO was forced in to practice earlier than intended in the US a year after the accident.
they should a video like this so they see why its so important and they should pay attention@@marysummer08
One of those incidents where literally anything that could go wrong went wrong. My dad was an engineer for Esso at the time and he said right after this happened everybody in the oil and gas industry freaked and immediately started implementing extra safety measures on all their rigs.
I was at school near Aberdeen with other oil workers kids and it was an awful time filled with stories of lucky escapes due to not being on the rig at the time and others who had lost their dads. Dreadful. Even those who had nothing to do with the Piper field felt terrible
Thank you for another respectful telling of tragic story ❤️
God, this is truly horrifying. I thought the Byford Dolphin explosive decompression was none chilling, another drilling rig accident in the 80s, but this takes the cake.
I want FH to do safety training videos.
"As I can tell you, all too well, I have seen these kinds of accidents before."
I'll second that idea!
Honestly I’d love to see FH make safety videos!
I am a translator and one of my work required me to translate the course of events in Piper Alpha, as the incident was cited as one of the examples why workers must follow procedures and to stop work when they deemed that it is unsafe (instead of waiting on for orders from their supervisors). It was just one paperwork, one tag missed, and it cost so many lives ... I was stressed out during the process of translating, couldn't get it off my mind for months. Thank you for the video, it brought so many memories.
To give some more information. There was actually a pump and its associated safety valve under maintenance that day. The pump had the maintenance completed, the valve, in a separate area had not and it was this that had the poorly fitted flange. The reason the paperwork was not found was because the permitry paperwork was kept in boxes according to the area of the rig the item was in rather than the systems. Ideally both permits to work should've been tied together as the systems were co-dependent. But they weren't. This also influenced the onshore gas industry as well as the offshore industry and led to the creation of the Safe Control of Operations processes.
There’s a pretty big error in this - atleast an error in presentation. You’ve depicted the critical issue being down to the fact that the paperwork wasn’t handed directly to someone but as you likely saw investigating this incident thoroughly, the incident report by Lord Cullen explains that the shift leader indeed conferred with the day counterpart as was his duty. The real issue with the paperwork was down to the fact that the condensate pump and its safety valve were situated separately on two distinct decks on the accident rig. There was recovered in the debris miraculously BOTH work orders just located in the other location as the ops manager. The fact that he signed back into service the alternate means he followed protocol, but the paper was not in the room he was in. Thus, the paperwork was unavailable and due to the developing unproductive shutdown threat looming, the haste led to a lack of thoroughness searching in another area for the work order. You’ve made it sound like a breach of duty. That’s not the case. And even still, you’ve neglected that in normal circumstances this still doesn’t lead to disaster directly. It was down to the fact that a simple, loosely fitted flat disk tightened by hand the report chalks up to the issue. Even during maintenance you’d expect pipe tightening which likely wouldn’t have led to the cascade of failures.
I always look forward to your latest episodes. You cover these disasters in such detail--it is amazing how many of them were caused by oversight and miscommunication. Well done.
Me too
I remember when this happened!
I was a U.S. Marine stationed in Okinawa Japan. We were all glued to the tv when it was on the news as nothing like this had ever happened that we were aware of. As U.S. Marines, one part of our boot camp training is learning how to step off of high surfaces and falling into deep water. I would have thought that they would teach that to all oil platform workers, and have it as part of their training.
It was a very tragic situation that was overshadowed a couple of years later when they sent us to the first Gulf War (Desert Shield/Storm) to fight in the oil fields of Kuwait.
Glad you've made a video about this, been to the memorial a few times and wondered exactly what happened to cause the disaster
Really well presented and factual. I used the Piper Alpha disater for years for students on the NEBOSH Certificate course. A list of errors starting with a missing Permit to Work sheet and the failure to shut down the other rigs feeding into the pipeline that led to tragedy.
Rest in peace to the 167 lives lost that day and condolences to their families and friends as well and much respect to the survivors and to the search and rescue teams.😞🙏
Fascinating indeed. Aside from the combination of factors that frequently accompanies disaster, what struck the most horror in me was the failure of the repairman to make sure the night supervisor knew of the out of service pump. That guy, more than any other factor, was the cause.
One bit of paper. All it took to start this off. :(
The disaster is analysed and described much more accurately here :
th-cam.com/video/S9h8MKG88_U/w-d-xo.html
There were a lot of failures that contributed to the chain of events that led to the disaster. The night supervisor was part of the chain but he was not the cause - not on his own.
@@f114163Absolutely correct. It was a disaster waiting to happen, numerous modifications to the rig making it unsafe, poor safety culture in the company. The 'guy making the repair' was almost incidental.
So great to see multiple channels show their take on accidents such as these
That survivor's story is the stuff of nightmares. Just the image of him helping a nearby survivor and chatting with him while looking for help only to realize he was already dead...
Interesting fact:
The Church of St. Nicholas on Union Street in Aberdeen has a chapel in memory of the victims of this disaster.
There is also a stain glass window at Ferryhill South Church commemorating the disaster
Jeez, I love your channel and never miss an episode. This one messed me up though. I really don’t know why , but this fifty year old man started crying while watching.
I don't really know how to explain, but I can think of a lot of respectable and sensible reasons a grown man would shed tears over this story.
Didn’t expect to hear about Piper Alpha on a channel like this! Honestly, it makes me happy to see the story being shared - people need to know what happened here.
An engineering teacher I used to have apparently was teaching a class not long after the disaster, and he said it was the most quiet he’d ever seen a class room, the north east of Scotland used to live and breathe oil and gas.
Scarily enough, an old neighbour of mine was close to being posted there, said that a friend of his took the job instead because he wanted the money for his family, don’t know if he survived though.
I love listening to these and finding the exact point where something bad would happen. "He filed the necessary paperwork to let the next shift know that pipe A should not be used under _any_ circumstance." Ah... it's going to be used, isn't it.
My grandfather Robert worked on this oil rig. He was on the sister rig Piper Bravo at the time of the explosion.
My mother told me that after hearing the news my mother and my grandmother stayed up until they got a phone call.
At the time there were many friends and colleagues as well as some of the people that were responsible for training him who were on Piper Alpha and unfortunately did not survive. I was told after the fact he had to go to many funerals in very quick succession.
My grandfather never really spoke about that day afterwards. I think he just didn't want to recall all of the friends that he lost. The explosion was entirely preventable had certain people on the rig followed proper procedure and the loss of life was unnecessary.
We were really blessed that grandad was okay, apparently he often worked on Piper Alpha and just happened to be working on the sister rig at the time. Lucky circumstance for sure. We don't know if he saw the explosion happen or how he found out about the explosion.
I'd imagine rescue attempts were quite challenging, I was told the only way they could feasibly and reliably get out to the rig is by helicopter.
My grandad was not perfect, he drank quite excessively (probably to forget struggles) and argued a lot but he was really a great man. Unfortunately when I was really young he was working out in Thailand on an oil rig and had a heart attack, which he recovered from. He really wanted to fly over to see me again and to meet my younger brother but unfortunately he had a medical episode (I believe it was a second heart attack or a stroke) and died in Thailand.
He really loved both Scotland and Thailand, especially Thailand. He thought it was the world's most beautiful country and spoke very fondly about it. I'm not sure what happened with his remains, I'll have to ask later, but I'm assuming he was laid to rest in a place that he loved.
I'm horrified that the other rigs kept of pumping fuel into the fire just because they weren’t sure if they had the authority to stop without getting in trouble.
Welcome to capitalism
My cousin was killed on this, i remember watching it with my mum and the call she received a few days later from my aunt with the grim news. Awful memory.
My parents knew about this disaster (my dad's worked as a civil engineer on oil platforms for a few decades) and when they were up in Aberdeen during the Covid crisis they found a memorial over there to them. Funnily enough, this was the year they had headed to Australia which was having its own issues with this and where me and my siblings were eventually born.
I took a public speaking course at a junior college during spring 2020 which began in person but finished remotely. One of my classmates was here in California studying abroad from Norway. He had to go back to Norway when the pandemic hit and he still attended class regularly even though it was 10:30 pm for him. His final speech for class was a passionate persuasive argument against more drilling in the North Sea. He didn't mention the numerous disasters such as this one but he did make a very convincing case against the drilling of more wells and building of off shore rigs.
As the safety officer for my branch I wanted to scream at the procedures. This is the perfect example of why "lock out tag out" is SO IMPORTANT. If the engineers had left a simple paper tag on the pump that said "In maintenance. Do not use" this entire thing could've been avoided!
If you are involved in industrial safety and are interested in this disaster you might listen to this :
th-cam.com/video/S9h8MKG88_U/w-d-xo.html
There was much more to the chain of events that lead to this disaster than the video described.
@@f114163 Thanks! I was thinking of using this disaster as a toolbox talk for lockout/tagout procedures, so the extra information is greatly appreciated.
@Salad Breath Safety regulations are written in blood, after all. I'm sure these people followed their procedures as told.
They did leave a sign on the pump that said "Do Not Use", they just did not leave anything saying why so a supervisor had to decide whether to shut down all the rigs in the Piper field at a cost of tens of millions or to try the pump and see if it works. In the oil industry you never go against money.
It’s amazing how much information you manage to cram into a short video such as this. Crazy how dangerous these jobs are.
In disasters like these all it takes is one mistake. Its such a tragedy that only after hundreds of people die so we see the flaws in safety procedures and stuff. It must be so hard to work in an environment where you have to be so vigilant. One mistake is all it takes...
Having worked in major manufacturing industry, I learned that working in a dangerous environment and understanding this horrible accident was caused by human and systemic error is similar to what the war vets I worked with told me. In the end, they fought to save each other. That was their driving ambition. Not being clear to the next shift on the natural gas pump concern was like not warning your buddies the enemy was within the perimeter. Where I worked, we locked out and dangerous and malfunctioning equipment so it could not be used without the person with the combo unlocking it. They would call you home in the middle of the night to unlock if necessary but no one breached that protocol. The shift would know what was unsafe.
Perfect timing, I needed this to help me sleep.
@Fish World Oh, word?
Pray, tell more. 🤖🤔
This is why 'Lock-Out/ Tag-Out' operations are so important. So sad.
I’m surprised anyone survived in 80s Britain and live to tell the tale.
I remember when younger there was always some carnage or another , some disaster, some terrible conflict , some lunatic killer , some major fire played out on the tv being watched by the adults.
"Fire in the night" about this incident is one of the best documentaries I've ever seen. Should be the first Google result on the video tab for "fire in the night 2013 x264 vk"
This was a disaster wrapped in a disaster. The initial fire was bad enough, but as it spread it cooked high pressure lines still flowing with crude oil containing a high percentage of methane and condensates, and they burst... The crew quarters compartment could not be evacuated.
My best friend worked for Occidental then, in the US. I was in the industry on the information side. This was an incredibly sad accident! I remember her telling me about Armand Hammer. Unbelievable tale. Thank you for sharing this
It's amazing how easily disasters of this scale can happen.
Amen!!
And how easily they could have been avoided or at least made less serious, just by breaking 1 link in the chain.
Nicely done- like all your videos! Thanks! They’re tastefully and sensitively produced!
One of the worst examples of corporate greed, keep pumping as it's "too expensive" to turn it off.
I read several books about this incident as preparation for writing a school report on the Piper Alpha Disaster. While the Deepwater Horizon received a lot more attention (and probably rightly so), this is the one that truly demonstrates the danger of offshore activities.
I was very young when this disaster happened, but I remember it as vividly today as the day I first heard of it. But I never knew that it happened as quickly as it did
Still Wakes the Deep brought me here - I see how this horrific event influenced the game. RIP to all those who lost their lives.
Need I say, if your oil platform is pumping oil to another platform that is on fire, and you are afraid to stop pumping, your supervisors should spend the rest of their lives in prison.
Absolutely infuriating beyond measure!! All these oil rig accidents have been avoidable and due to human error. It's a travesty. Those poor workers
Genuinely sounds like some kind of Final Destination set up. That complete domino effect of minor errors which individually would not have caused much issue turning into a complete disaster.
Thoroughly enjoy watching your video clips. They are crafted with a professional touch, are informative and respectful to the catastrophe(s) being shown. Very well done-keep up the outstanding work/production of your videos.
I started work in the offshore oil industry two weeks prior to Piper Alpha. I was asking myself "what the hell have I just walked into?"
Another absolutely excellent video about a disaster I had no idea was a thing...thank you for your continued work!
It's amazing how one small mistake can cause such a huge disaster.
to be fair, it was many many severe mistakes
It's just dumb engineering and over-reliance on flimsy paperwork. There should've been warning lights above each pipe that could be turned on by an engineer when it was dangerous to use.
I guess we only learn through failure, though.
@@bugjams There should have been a lot of things, but back then, systems were much more flimsy and reliant on operator consciencious-ness, rather than fail-safe methods. :(
Great video, as always. You should really look into doing a video on the Wellington train disaster in Washington State; it's right up your alley!
Such a horrendous tragedy to be involved in RIP to all those that lost their lives
no fucking shit
It's always fascinating how there are a combination of events that contribute to a disaster. Like the pump failing when the other was out of commission, the siting of the pumps, the fire suppression system being unavailable for maintenance.
A terrible, terrible event.
Being from the NE of Scotland, this is so fascinating. thank you!
@Anne Frank Vape Pen replaced by who?
I saw the documentary Fire in the Night about this disaster and it was tremendous. The one thing that was really amazing to hear was
the one man who came across a dead man in the water and despite all that he had survived he refused to take the man's life jacket and
use it for himself. The wherewithal to make that decision in that moment is pretty amazing. Roy Carey is his name and his story of how
he survived is just one of the incredible stories the documentary covers.
It has been mentioned before, but I will say it again; safety rules are written in blood.