167 men died and many more were injured and traumatised. Engulfed in fire, over the next few hours most of the oil rig topside modules collapsed into the sea. Late in the evening of 06 July 1988, a series of explosions ripped through the Piper Alpha platform in the North Sea. They include: Management of change (design issues) Personal safety over process safety (fire water pumps on manual start to protect divers) Isolation and permits for maintenance (pump started before maintenance complete) Handover (inadequate transfer of information between crews, shifts and disciplines) Safety culture (complacent - everything’s fine) Emergency response – evacuation. The lessons to be learned are applicable far beyond the offshore oil industry, across all hazardous industries, and every bit as relevant today. The Cullen inquiry uncovered not only what probably happened on the terrible night of 06 July 1988, but also the complex path leading up to it, the early warnings and missed opportunities that might have prevented a tragedy in which 167 people lost their lives.
Most of the physical evidence sank to the bottom of the North Sea, so the testimony of survivors and witnesses had to be woven together into a coherent story. The investigation into the Piper Alpha disaster has much to teach us thirty years on.
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