The Finger, The Fire, Fatalities & Flying to Barbados with Bobby Davro.

It's 2012 and I'm flying to Barbados with the comedian Bobby Davro and his late fiancée Vicky Wright. OK, I'm just on the same flight, we aren't exactly travelling 'together', but it's really put a smile on my face and I've had to text family & friends to tell them, along with a Facebook post. My final destination is Trinidad, via Barbados this time, St Lucia being another lovely route I once took. Then I'm jumping on a chopper at Camden Heliport to fly offshore and assist with the installation of a new radar array following an incident there during a previous offshore contract. It's that old 'Vessel on a collision course with the rig" chestnut, an imaginary scenario sometimes used during a Practice Muster Drill offshore except this time it had been the real thing. The vessel in question was quite a size as I recall and it had been literally "Coming right for us!". Attempts had been made to contact the ship by radio but to no avail. Eventually a decision had been made to send out a helicopter and a guy was lowered down to investigate. There was no-one onboard. We assumed that either the engine was dead or there was no fuel or both as another vessel had to get involved and this Mary Celeste like ship was towed back to port and away from us. Rumours were of "an insurance job", who knows?

So that's Bobby Davro explained, now onto the finger, the fire and the fatalities. This is the really unpleasant part . . .

In 2005 in the Mumbai High North oilfield in the Arabian Sea, a person working in the Galley on a Multi-Service Vessel (MSV) 'Sagar Surakshas' had injured a finger quite badly. The Offshore Installation Manager (OIM) had agreed to transfer him to the main platform in a basket using one of the deck cranes. To do this of course the ship had to come in relatively close to the platform. Unfortunately it had problems with it's computer assisted Dynamic Positioning System, so it was brought in stern first but its helideck struck one or more of the gas-lift risers causing a high-pressure release. This found an ignition source and ignited, an explosion and intense fire followed. The fire escalated rapidly and the platform was abandoned. Within 2 hours the production platform had been reduced to molten metal and it collapsed into the sea. Adjacent platforms were also severely damaged by the heat radiation. The 'Noble Charlie?Yester' and Transocean's 'Charlie Yester' were also close by. The MSV also caught fire.

The fires on the MSV were eventually put out, at which point it was towed away from the incident and abandoned. Six commercial divers were inside Saturation Chambers on this MSV throughout this horrific incident who were left behind. They were rescued, fortunately, 36 hours later. The Multi-Service Vessel sank soon afterwards.

On my current contract I'm working closely with one of these incredibly lucky men - Burt Morrison, ex-Commercial Diver, an absolutely amazing gentleman, with eyes that I just knew had stories behind them. The expression "Eyes are the windows to your soul” is so appropriate when describing him. Recounting this remarkable tale of his lucky escape from MSV 'Sagar Surakshas' he remembered one of his diver colleagues writing letters to his family as he did not think they would survive whilst they were trapped in the chamber. During part of that fateful day they had radio comms, but this was lost when they were abandoned.

Around 361?survivors were rescued via chopper and ships, with 11?people confirmed as dead as a result of the accident and 11 missing who were never found. The fire was the worst accident in the history of ONGC.

I felt the shock wave first and then heard the BOOM at Coryton Refinery in 2007. The 200ft fireball on Unit 35 being a worrying sight as these things can quickly escalate as shown above. We were lucky that day due to the rapid actions of the refinery team there and no-one was seriously injured or killed. I've been also onboard an FPSO when a massive gas release occurred and it was only by virtue of wind direction that we didn't explode with a huge flare really close by. I asked the First Officer a couple of days later about this as I had heard the release was similar to that of Piper Alpha. "Oh no Peter" he replied "Much worse! If it had ignited it would have blown off the bow of this boat immediately".

It's because of days like these, when a release finds an ignition source and product rapidly catches fire, that I mention such accidents quite often to my team. I encourage, in fact I implore, all offshore rope access technicians to report damaged lights and equipment that may no longer be Intrinsically Safe to prevent sad days like these. I have in fact spotted and reported three lights onboard my current platform on ORCA ACCESS SERVICES LTD 's latest offshore contract, ones with water inside that can't be intrinsically safe anymore. I noticed a cracked light cover with a hole in it on an FPSO a couple of months ago too. I walk around with my eyes wide open offshore. Product releases are very rare but ANY potential ignition source needs addressing. The photos above show you exactly why.

I'll say it again and again because I love the expression, often said to me by my wonderful friend JR:

"Remember, this isn't a pillow factory"

Rest in peace all those lost due to these tragic accidents.

Rest in peace too Bobby's fiancée Vicky Wright, daughter of footballer Billy Wright and singer Joy, of The Beverley Sisters who died in May 2023 at the age of 63, just eight months after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

I hope all the families and friends of those who died that are mentioned in this article take comfort from their memories of their loved ones.