When is the next one?

One of the most tragic industrial incidents the world has seen unfolded on the evening of 6th July 1988*. The incident killed 165 of the 220 onboard, as well as another two crew members from the standby vessel Sandhaven.

The explosions ripped through the 34,000-ton platform with the almost immediate loss of 167 lives. Amazingly 61 souls survived, some jumping 175ft (53m) into the burning sea. The ruptured well heads and lines produced 200 meter flames with a peak rate of ~100 gigawatts, that was 3x the UK total energy consumption rate.

The platform was lost to sea within three hours, it took a further three weeks for Red Adair to control the fires, leaving a bill of $3.4 billion in insured loss/damage.

The uncomfortable truth is that the warning signs were in black and white.

A report published in 1986 concluded a prolonged high-pressure gas fire would be impossible to fight, another in 1987 highlighted abandonment risks, with yet another in 1988 stating structural integrity could be lost by fire inside of 15 mins.

Tragically, the engineering solutions such as sub-sea isolation valves and fireproofing structural members were thought expensive and impractical.

There were also warnings about the safety management system. When a rigger died on the 7th September 1987 the investigation highlighted inadequacies in the permit to work (PTW) system. The lessons from that event, and the potential to prevent the impending disaster a year later (that hinged on PTW), were both lost.

One week after the disaster, Lord Cullen, a Senator of the College of Justice in Scotland, was appointed to hold the public inquiry. The what, why and how took nearly two years and, due to evidence being below the waves, it was necessary for many of the survivors to relive the nightmare and create a coherent timeline.

The 400-page investigation report presented a catalogue of failures, warning and missed opportunities. Lord Cullen gave 106 recommendations, implementation of which was shared between industry and the regulator. Even today, many of those recommendations are relevant in all process industries, from nuclear to aviation.

Piper Alpha teaches many things, and everyone takes something different from that horrible day. For me, the overriding lesson is as a reminder that those of us involved in the management of major accident hazards (MAH) are duty-bound to deliver a higher standard of excellence than in normal industrial setting, and it is all of our responsibility to ensure that we are competent to manage that risk.

My call to action is to you: are you confident that those in your charge are competent to proactively manage and reactively respond to the MAH risk?

*I was 9 years old and can vividly remember sitting on the sofa next to my mother as the tears rolled down her face whilst watching the BBC news. RIP the 167 x