This Wave Killed All 84 Men

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I’m a Newfoundlander and I lost 3 high school friends in this awful disaster. Rip my friends

I was a crew member with dept of fisheries and oceans. We were put on search and rescue. I have a hard time finding the words to describe that time. The ship was pin drop quiet. We spotted a life raft, when we got closer it was in two pieces. We searched , everyone looking. We pulled eight out of the Atlantic. All the while knowing the power of that storm. There’s no guarantees in a storm on the sea. Heartbroken every time but knowing there was no hope. One man had his last name stenciled on his coveralls. I’ve never forgotten him. Learned his first name in a Maclean’s magazine letter written by his brother. Now there it was again in this post. As for preparedness. Coveralls we’re not the usual attire. Some had pyjamas on. No socks or shoes. Nothing to protect them from the cold. Nothing! Just the small red type life jacket that goes around your neck, like you’d wear in July in a boat on a lake. It will haunt me the rest of my days. I was a 21 year old then. 63 now and still it makes my heart hurt. My ship was heading for the North Sea. I worked through the union to ensure EVERYONE on board had a Mustang floater suit. I wasn’t popular with the captain but the crew were grateful. By the way the Ocean Ranger was known as the Ocean Danger to her crew.

That control room not being set for storm conditions is mind boggling! An unsecured portal killed everyone, incredible. ...

My father served on a destroyer in the N Atlantic during the war, taking convoys to Arkangel in Russia. On one run he witnessed several waves running before a storm that he says was over 200 ft high. His boat ploughed in & disappered for 20 seconds...when they poked out the upper side...two Liberty Ships had slammed bow-first into the wave....and never broke surface.... He said they just kept on...to the bottom of the Ocean. The convoy carried on without even slowing.

The fact that they kept working during this storm... really tells you everything you need to know about the company!!!

I was offshore for 30 years on Platforms, Jackups, Semisubmersible’s and diving boats, and I can say from my heart that everyone on board these vessels know that the Companies put money before their life

A semisubmersible rig can be risky even in calm waters, if someone doesn't know what they're doing. As a marine electrician in 1965, I was on such a rig like that, in a wet dock at Ingles Shipbuilding Corp in Pascagoula, Mississippi when someone accidentally left a valve open on one of the pontoons allowing seawater to start pouring in. The platform I was on started to tilt and everyone panicked. As we entered an elevator to evacuate, we could see through a port hole where a fire truck had been lowered down using hoists and was pumping water out of that leg. After a few more minutes the error was discovered and the valve was closed. Back on land, everyone breathed a sigh of relief and no one was injured, but it could have been disastrous.

i can't imagine what it must have been like out there. huge respect to the brave rescuers that tried to help.

My neighbour is a retired helicopter pilot... The last pilot to bring men off of the Ocean Ranger. The Ranger was managed by a land based oil drilling company and they had no idea how to operate the Ocean Ranger. The staff engineer left a newbie in charge of the stability and ballast system before the incident, but neither the main guy nor the newbie knew properly what they were doing. Once it passed a certain list angle, there was nothing to be done and it was doomed. My helicopter pilot friend said all the helicopter pilots didn't like going to the Ocean Ranger - ever!! There was a clear difference in quality of operations between the Ranger and other rigs in the area.. Your video suggests the incident was mostly weather based. But in fact it was primarily management based. The other rigs in the area DID NOT SINK!!!!! Management of the Ocean Ranger from top to bottom were entirely incompetent and should never have been running such a rig. They didn't even have enough safety PPE!!!!! Most could have survived if they had survival suits! Terrible incompetence and I don't like that your video doesn't touch on the management deficiencies!!

The Ocean Ranger was designed and built by MItsubishi Heavy Industries. The location of the ballast control room was about 30 feet above the water line in one of the support legs. The port hole window in the control room was not designed to be hit by waves, which is why there was a second hatch, this one without a window, which was closed over the first one in the event of a major storm. Evidently the crew didn't know about the exterior hatch or they knew about it but didn't close it for some unknown reason. Either way, it was never closed. It's heartbreaking to think something as simple as closing a hatch might have prevented this. This was central to Mitsubishi's defense.

That is an unbelievable story! The incredible bravery of the coast guard, willingly venturing out in those conditions is mind blowing

The courage and commitment of the rescuers in such condictions is totally commendable, putting their own lives at risk throughout during this terrible incident.

As a Canadian, this disaster is embedded in my memory. I realise that the storm was immense, but this seems to be yet another example of people mattering far less than money. Since the storm was forecast to be a bad one, shouldn’t the men have been evacuated before it hit? Or is that a dumb question? It’s so, so sad. 😔

I've been loving the emergence of these genuinely high-quality, accurate "disaster" channels over the last couple years. It's refreshing not having to sift through so many melodramatic top 10s that retell entirely fictional stories. Keep it up man!

I was captain on a small vessel. We had spent two months in the Arctic winter and headed from the Arctic to Virginia, passing through this exact area, though not at that time. The ship was 224 ft and 1900 tons. Over a 48-hour period our average speed over the ground was 1 knot. One. I had to sleep in a tube by putting my survival suit on one side of the mattress and lifejackets on the other. My forward-facing porthole was covered by a steel plate. Those Nor'Easters are nothing to mess around with.

There's something profoundly tragic knowing that the seamen and the rescuers were all highly skilled, brave, and fighting for survival with all they had. And they still couldn't make it. You never know when it's your time, gotta get right with the Creator.

I worked on a sister rig to the Ranger, in the North Sea when this happened, the Ocean Victory. It was a very somber time. Every American man, mainly from Louisiana and Texas I worked with, knew or had friends on the Ranger. We were working in similar conditions often and it certainly made you think a little more about our perils and mans impunity when nature is in control. So very sad for all those men's families and loved ones.

As a 1st Mate, I was caught in a once in a hundred years storm because we had to get the cargo in on time. Hours of just sitting in one place under full throttle doing nothing but climbing waves and crashing down into the trough. You haven't lived until you have experienced a brief moment of weightlessness on a self powered cargo barge just before you begin to fall into the next wave. I had to hang onto the arms of the chair, bolted to the floor, to keep from falling backwards out of my chair. It was a long time ago and I still have the immersion suit I bought shortly thereafter.

I was in the US Coast Guard in 1979- 2005. When I was on CGC Boutwell, we had to rescue about 16 people off one of these in a storm in gulf of alaska.Never underestimate what mother nature is capable of doing. 60 foot waves are beautiful when you are young and have no idea how much energy is contained in waves like this.This was just after the MV Prinsendam cruise ship sinking, all 504 people were rescued.