4 ms·

Remembering Piper Alpha

48 points by Thevet 9y ago

teh_klev 9y ago
BBC Scotland produced a 1hr30min documentary about Piper Alpha a few years back. There's some pretty harrowing experiences talked about by the survivors and those who lost family members and friends. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PcDNRSsM24 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PcDNRSsM24 It's fairly brutal stuff. My mum's friend lost her son in the accident, I don't think there was community throughout Scotland who didn't know of a family that had been affected by this tragedy.
- rwmj 9y ago
  I can second this. Although I remember the event, I was a bit too young to really understand what had gone on. This documentary was terrifying.
- King-Aaron 9y ago
  I remember watching a similar doco as a kid, before my Dad went away to help set up the initial systems on the Wandoo A and B platforms in the North West of Western Australia. He'd not been offshore in a rig environment before and the conversation about the Piper Alpha came up. As a kid about to see his Dad off for several weeks, it was a pretty distressing documentary to watch. Edit: Just realised that you linked a different video to the one I recalled
jdietrich 9y ago
If anyone is interested in the engineering and management failures that led to the disaster, I can highly recommend the lecture at the link below. It's presented by Sir Brian Appleton, a chemical engineer who provided technical advice to the Piper Alpha inquiry. He examines the systemic safety shortcomings in great detail and reveals some fascinating and broadly applicable lessons on managing a complex system. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9h8MKG88_U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9h8MKG88_U
- teh_klev 9y ago
  Somehow I'd not seen that before, thanks for posting.
sofaofthedamned 9y ago
Jesus this brings back so many memories. Knew family member of a friend who died, but I was too young to care at the time. We complain about health and safety sometimes, but...
mysterydip 9y ago
After reading through the wiki timeline of events, I understand my company's policy (and emphasis) on "any employee can stop work at any time for a safety issue and we will back them up on it". This could have been much less tragic if the employees who had the ability to cut things off sooner felt they had the authority to act.

48 points by Thevet 9y ago

BBC Scotland produced a 1hr30min documentary about Piper Alpha a few years back. There's some pretty harrowing experiences talked about by the survivors and those who lost family members and friends. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PcDNRSsM24 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PcDNRSsM24 It's fairly brutal stuff. My mum's friend lost her son in the accident, I don't think there was community throughout Scotland who didn't know of a family that had been affected by this tragedy.

rwmj 9y ago
I can second this. Although I remember the event, I was a bit too young to really understand what had gone on. This documentary was terrifying.
King-Aaron 9y ago
I remember watching a similar doco as a kid, before my Dad went away to help set up the initial systems on the Wandoo A and B platforms in the North West of Western Australia. He'd not been offshore in a rig environment before and the conversation about the Piper Alpha came up. As a kid about to see his Dad off for several weeks, it was a pretty distressing documentary to watch. Edit: Just realised that you linked a different video to the one I recalled

jdietrich 9y ago

If anyone is interested in the engineering and management failures that led to the disaster, I can highly recommend the lecture at the link below. It's presented by Sir Brian Appleton, a chemical engineer who provided technical advice to the Piper Alpha inquiry. He examines the systemic safety shortcomings in great detail and reveals some fascinating and broadly applicable lessons on managing a complex system. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9h8MKG88_U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9h8MKG88_U

teh_klev 9y ago
Somehow I'd not seen that before, thanks for posting.

sofaofthedamned 9y ago

Jesus this brings back so many memories. Knew family member of a friend who died, but I was too young to care at the time. We complain about health and safety sometimes, but...

mysterydip 9y ago

After reading through the wiki timeline of events, I understand my company's policy (and emphasis) on "any employee can stop work at any time for a safety issue and we will back them up on it". This could have been much less tragic if the employees who had the ability to cut things off sooner felt they had the authority to act.