Alarm Was Disabled Before BP Blast

Wall Street Journal ^ | Russel Gold and Ben Cassleman

[OldNavyVet]

A critical alarm system that should have warned workers of danger aboard the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig had been disabled before the rig erupted into flames on April 20,

[OldNavyVet]

Things weren't going too well aboard the Deepwater Horizon ...

[trumandogz]

If true, BP needs to be prohibited from US E&P.

[Paladin2]

It’s interesting that the Halliburton guys quickly chartered up a chopper to get out’a Dodge.

[OldNavyVet]

Halliburton? Your source, please.

[Jack Hydrazine]

It’s sounds like from everything I have read that BP ran a shoddy operation in all aspects.

[ClearCase_guy]

1) Alarm disabled. Check.
2) Computer system down. Blue Screens everywhere. Check.
3) Massive explosion. Check.
4) SWAT team on route. Check.
5) Media notified. Check.
6) Media told not to mention the SWAT team. Check.

[trumandogz]

That would be a Schlumberger crew.

[Paladin2]

Memory. May have been Schlumberger.

[HiTech RedNeck]

without looking for a link, i understand that bp had halliburton install the drilling equipment at the site. but once that was done, it was bp’s baby to actually drill, and if halliburton scooted, it would have been because they were trying to warn bp it was doing it all wrong and it had fallen on deaf ears. not even the bush hater obama blamed halliburton.

[FReepaholic]

It was Schlumberger and it wasn't "quickly...to get out'a Dodge". They left about 12 hours before the blast on a regularly scheduled chopper transfer flight.

http://www.upstreamonline.com/live/article215308.ece

[alicewonders]

1) Alarm disabled. Check.

2) Computer system down. Blue Screens everywhere. Check.

3) Massive explosion. Check.

4) SWAT team on route. Check.

5) Media notified. Check.

6) Media told not to mention the SWAT team. Check.

B.I.N.G.O.

[Paladin2]

"SLB gets out to the Deepwater Horizon to run the CBL, and they find the well still kicking heavily, which it should not be that late in the operation. SLB orders the “company man” (BP’s man on the scene that runs the operation) to dump kill fluid down the well and shut-in the well. The company man refuses. SLB in the very next sentence asks for a helo to take all SLB personel back to shore. The company man says there are no more helo’s scheduled for the rest of the week (translation: you’re here to do a job, now do it). SLB gets on the horn to shore, calls SLB’s corporate HQ, and gets a helo flown out there at SLB’s expense and takes all SLB personel to shore.

http://incakolanews.blogspot.com/2010/05/bp-deepwater-horizon-important.html

6 hours later, the platform explodes."

That's basically what I remember reading at the time.

Has that story been changed?

[taildragger]

Guess who was on the BOD of Schlumberger and resigned and who was on the lawfirm repping BP as they did the 20 billion deal? You guessed it, Jamie Gorelick...

http://www.xe.com/news/2010-06-07%2016:23:00.0/1196809.htm?c=1&t=

[taildragger]

Can anyone confirm what "Savage" has noted?

That the "valve" was rebuilt in China?

What did they do? Did they replace and metals within, and If so, I want to see the metallurgy "certs"... I do not trust them....

[edge10]

Three Mile Island
Chernobyl
Deep Water Horizon

When you disable or do not believe your safety systems, bad things happen!!!

Old nuclear submariner.

[RipSawyer]

A worker prepares oil-retention booms in Grand Isle, La., Friday, as a tropical storm approached the coast.
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

When a news report uses both present and past tenses in the same caption I have a hard time trusting their reporting. Either present or past is alright but not both.

[Pearls Before Swine]

If true, BP needs to be prohibited from US E&P.

This is one of the few things that sounds more like a Transoceanic screwup rather than a BP mistake. BP made the overall strategic errors; but it sounds here like Transocean disabled their alarm. I don't think it would have mattered in preventing the blowout, but it might have saved a few lives of the crew if the alarm had been on.

[Choose Ye This Day]

SWAT team was en route before or AFTER the explosion?

Link for media told not to mention SWAT...?

[ClearCase_guy]

I admit to having a mild amount of fun. My memory is that in the first days after the explosion, there were news stories of multiple SWAT teams being sent to multiple oil rigs after the Deepwater explosion. I don't know if that was true, but I saw the stories. Then, all the stories stopped talking about SWAT teams. I don't know why.

I do know that the media seems to do Obama's bidding. And I do know that Obama clamped down on media coverage of the spill. I do not know for sure that the media was told to stop talking about SWAT teams being sent to oil rigs. But I notice that news coverage stopped mentioning SWAT teams about two days after the explosion.

[Paladin2]

"multiple SWAT teams"

Weren't they teams of lawyers sent by H0lder to get thing under control?