WSJ: There Was 'Nobody in Charge' (Deepwater Horizon Explosion and Fire )

Wall Street Journal ^ | MAY 27, 2010 | DOUGLAS A. BLACKMON, VANESSA O'CONNELL, ALEXANDRA BERZON And ANA CAMPOY

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Associated Press

In this aerial photo taken in the Gulf of Mexico more than 50 miles southeast of Venice on Louisiana's tip, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig burned on April 21.

In the minutes after a cascade of gas explosions crippled the Deepwater Horizon on April 20, confusion reigned on the drilling platform. Flames were spreading rapidly, power was out, and terrified workers were leaping into the dark, oil-coated sea. Capt. Curt Kuchta, the vessel's commander, huddled on the bridge with about 10 other managers and crew members.

Andrea Fleytas, a 23-year-old worker who helped operate the rig's sophisticated navigation machinery, suddenly noticed a glaring oversight: No one had issued a distress signal to the outside world, she recalls in an interview. Ms. Fleytas grabbed the radio and began calling over a signal monitored by the Coast Guard and other vessels.

"Mayday, Mayday. This is Deepwater Horizon. We have an uncontrollable fire."

When Capt. Kuchta realized what she had done, he reprimanded her, she says.

"I didn't give you authority to do that," he said, according to Ms. Fleytas, who says she responded: "I'm sorry."

Part Two of a Journal investigation finds the doomed oil rig was unprepared for disaster, hobbled by a complex chain of command and a balky decision-making structure.

Part One: BP Decisions Set Stage for Disaster

An examination by The Wall Street Journal of what happened aboard the Deepwater Horizon just before and after the explosions suggests the rig was unprepared for the kind of disaster that struck and was overwhelmed when it occurred.

[Hoodat]

BP is really going to take a hit on this.

BP should take a hit on this, especially after the refinery explosion in 2005. But unfortunately, Shell is going to take a hit as well.

[Crimson Elephant]

Big Government doesn’t work...but when corporations get so huge that no one or two people really own or control it, they can fall into the same issues.

[FatherofFive]

But how did Bush start the fire?

[hedgetrimmer]

People have such short memories. I the 1960s articles were run in American magazines and newspapers showing the effects of communism in countries like Poland and the eastern bloc.

China’s pearl river delta area today as well.

Communism means pollution and environmental distress.

It has been illustrated over and over.

We have a communist marxist president, and you can see the results in this disaster, and others coming I’m sure.

The ‘environment’ always has been a tool for communists and socialists. This disaster was created by the global socialist economic policies put in place in the last 30 years by Bush Clinton Bush Obama.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Many....her photo:

[AFreeBird]

Bump for later

[PAR35]

A guy named Murphy was in charge that day

No, an arrogant incompetent named Kuchta. Sounds like the Peter Principle, not Murphy's law.

[BradyLS]

Is it me? Every time I see pics of the fire boats pouring streams of water at the burning rig, NOT ONE STREAM is ever hitting the fire.

[zeaal]

Go Andrea Go!

[BradyLS]

I agree. Nothing is going right. You make a call. And suddenly the chief authority is screaming at you for not waiting for the order.

That guy saved his career for another five minutes. Eleven workers died. And he still lost the rig.

But possibly Andrea’s unauthorized act saved a lot more.

I realize that everyone has to work as a team in a crisis. But if the teammates are getting no direction, that’s not much of a team.

[lack-of-trust]

Not Guilty! (ok, I know that’s for a different type of thread)

Pretty, cool head in a crisis. Sounds like great wife material to me. wish I was a decade younger.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

That was my thought...

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

I am going to make sure all of my Grand Daughters know about her.

[Lancey Howard]

This story reminds me of something else:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5175151

(excerpt)

NASA’s Lawrence Mulloy reacted to the resistance this way: “My God, Thiokol. When do you want me to launch? Next April?” That turned the tide of the discussion. The Thiokol managers pressed their engineers to reverse themselves. When that failed, the managers simply overruled them, and submitted their own launch recommendation.

The next morning, two of the engineers told us, they fully expected Challenger to blow up at launch ignition. One of the engineers silently prayed during the countdown. At liftoff, with no explosion, he began to wonder whether he’d been wrong. The relief didn’t last. Seventy-three seconds into the flight, as the spacecraft began an expected roll, the forces on the solid rocket motors began to pull one of them apart. The cold and stiff o-rings at one joint didn’t flex and seal as designed. Searing hot gasses escaped. In an instant, the sky was filled with smoke and debris. The engineers were filled with grief. And as one later told Zwerdling, “...we all knew exactly what happened.”

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Nice summary of the players in the dramma at this Blog:

Apocalypse Now, Part II: The Stage Is Set

[Night Hides Not]

David Axelrod is in charge. He’s been working 16-hr days since Day One - no vacation, no time off.

Just like all of Soros' good butt-boys.

[Ragnar54]

I suppose next you’re going to suggest that Obama needed a diversion to take Blago, Sestak, financial reform and the healthcare “reform” blowback off the front page? That he needed an excuse to shut down and eventually take over the oil industry? Ridiculous! The health care, auto and financial industries were special cases! Who would Obama know who could plan a bombing like that? Ayers is just a schoolteacher! And Obama doesn’t know Ayers! Or Sestak! Any day now Obama will finish preparing his response to Sestak, and then you’ll see!

</sarc>

[norraad]

Yeah, glad the little girl drivin' called for help, but I can't help thinkin' about the last words heard on the Challenger black box, "..what could it hurt, let her drive.........

[Freedom_Is_Not_Free]

Does Axelrod outrank Jarrett and Emmanuel? I had the power ranking as Emmanuel, then Jarrett, then Axelrod. I would like to know the pecking order under Soros. I put Obama beneath all 3 of them in the power structure, as Obama is just the front man, the pitch man.

Do I have an incorrect understanding?

[Freedom_Is_Not_Free]

So, the entire episode lasted less than 10 minutes?

At 9:47 - the first hiss of methane was heard.
At 9:50 - Explosion.
At 9:56 - order to seal the well by emergency disconnect

Maybe they could have reacted faster but 9 minutes passed from the hiss of Methane to the attempt to seal the well, and that with a disorienting violent explosion taking place.

Just prior to that explosion, the rig was pummeled with a surge of Methane gas so violent it knocked out power to the rig and knocked it around with the feeling of being in an earthquake.

It would be nice to think that more swift action could have been taken and it sounds like those in charge were not cool under fire when hit suddenly with an emergency that was unusually swift and powerful (it sounds like drilling mud being catapulted 250 feet in the air from intrusion of gas in the well is not a typical experience).

After reading the article, it seems to me that this was an unusually fast and hard hitting emergency event that would have been difficult to address under the best of circumstances, the best plan, the coolest leader. Emergency procedures do need to be revised and the dual chain of command is a prescription for disaster, as happened here.

Thanks for the great article. I have a better appreciation how little time they had to react to this event. Just 2-3 minutes passed from the violent methane surge that knocked out power to the platform, to the explosion. Dealing with the shock from a catastrophic explosion, resulting deaths, injuries and fires, would have been very hard to keep your cool in that case unless you had just been trained or had wargamed out your response, or you were just a very cool-headed quick-thinking individual.

This is a tough one. Yes, a minute or two quicker thinking might have lead to sealing the well. Or maybe when power was knocked out to the platform, the ability to employee the emergency disconnect was knocked out with that Methane surge. I just don’t know.

What a tragedy.