NPR Interview

You can probably listen to the whole interview online at NPR.

Basically, what I heard said was that the drilling of the deep well off Louisiana had not gone right from the start. It was as if this well just did not want to be drilled at all. But on the fateful day they decided to take a short cut because they were moving the deep drilling rig the next day. They could have not removed the mud in the oil drilling line but in the interests of time decided to pump the mud out. This was the single fatal mistake that cost the 11 men their lives and multiple injuries and permanent and semi-permanent Post Traumatic Stress disorder for many of the survivors.

When the decision was made to pump out the mud out of the oil line the incredible pressure of gas at a certain point pushed mud, water and ice 240 feet in the air above the water and out of the top of the drilling rig and then the gas came down like water and into engines and it caught fire and blew up and the rest is history.

So, much like a military operation that isn't going to work this whole thing was pushed along despite the risks and difficulties until there was a catastrophic failure. Since companies often use the same kind of military discipline in these kinds of situations how could we expect another outcome?

And yet, if a different decision could have been made and if what was done was thought about a little more deeply none of the problems we have now might have happened.

The other information was that a steel liner was rammed down inside the pipe and it is possible that one of the pipe joints was too thick for the automatic oil cut-off to work properly. So there were fail safe mechanisms in place they just all failed in this particular emergency.