87 Dead Bodies in this Block

This is why a lock-out system exists. They should have been unable to start the pump regardless of incompetence and paperwork.

My lovely brother lost his life on this platform, he was 23 years old. He wasn't meant to be there, it wasn't even the rig he worked on normally, he was filling in for a trip. He was asked at short notice to go and didn't really want to but it's hard to not help out if you want the same courtesy back so he went. He was brought back in a lead box and identified by his teeth. We finally laid him to rest on the 5th of november, 4 months after the explosion. I thank all those involved in fire fighting,rescue and the workers involved after in every field for their hard and distressing work. This should never have happened.

You missed some details: - the emergency procedures stated to NEVER jump from the platform because you would die from impact, or from hypothermia. This is why the 87 people stayed in the accommodation block. The majority of survivors were ones who ignored that and jumped - the oil rig was not designed to handle gas, the fire resistant walls were only fire resistant, not explosion proof - the other oil rigs continued to pump gas to piper for hours despite seeing the fire, out of fear of being fired. They only stopped when one operator ignored commands from a superior and shut it down

My friend Carl Busse was on the Piper. He was the Directional Drilling Engineer, and also the only American to die in the disaster. He was from Navasota , Texas, and was a great guy

I served in the British Army with a guy who’s father jumped off one of the highest parts on the rig and survived, rescuers were amazed how he survived the jump, I’d take my chance jumping against being burnt to death any day, another colleague was from the Shetlands and he told me that he saw a fire rescue boat come into harbour, when he was a teenager, a day or so after the disaster, the paint had blistered and cracked along the hull, such was the heat. RIP to all those who lost their lives that awful night.

My late step-father Hamish was the medical examiner at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary when this happened, he was the guy who determined the cause of death. He didn’t talk about the Piper Alpha often, but when he did he told me it was the reason he stopped being an ME, that a lot of the bodies weren’t intact, and it left him with PTSD, horrible depression and alcoholism. Any time I visit Hazlehead Park I go to the Piper Alpha memorial, I think of Hamish. He eventually took his life at 56, it was just too much to live with. If anyone is ever up this way visiting Aberdeen I’d recommend visiting Hazlehead, it’s a beautiful memorial.

My friend Andy Kiloh was on it, he was in a coma, he should have died but made a miraculous recovery, not without long term health issues. He was retired due to this. With a huge pay out he could live his life out without worrying where is pennies will come from. Such a tragedy.

Thanks for your video, I'm glad people remember. I lost my dad in this disaster and I can always remember seeing that first tv image. Unfortunately, he was one of the 30 never recovered. There's so much about that diabolical platform and night that can still bring out the rage in me 35 years later.

When I was in the Navy and taking safety training, I took a class called trace barrier analysis, and this was used to show how one step can cause an accident or prevent one.

My father was a compression diver working in the North Sea and told me the story of how he was on the Piper Alpha days before this happened. Not only that, during the 80's he was a diving supervisor and the absolute cowboy approach the oil & gas companies had back then was nothing short of gung ho, he still has all his little black books from the time, shocking. Thanks for retelling these stories, lest we forget that these large companies will treat us like nothing more than grist for the mill given half a chance. Profit is king, we are seen as expendable.

I worked for the dive company (2W Taylor) who had the contract on Piper A when this happened. Thankfully I was on leave when it happened. It was one of the "best dive assignments" in the North sea diving business at the time. Piper A was unique. One of the most productive platforms in all of the North Sea, OXY drilled the heck out of the oil field. They added more drilling capacity to the platform than any other in the world for it's size and design. Way too much in fact. The platform jacket was super stressed and began to fail. It had cracked members everywhere. The documentary talks about the huge diving platform and that was accurate. No other platform in the North Sea had anything like this. There was a full time repair program ongoing for years. We installed massive custom made clamps on every joint and node. So much NDT work looking for structural cracks and so much clamping and repairing. It was the best full time job for any diver and a very coveted gig. A fantastic learning assignment back in the day. Oxy drilled the thing to near destruction. The drilling power was immense and the torsional stresses created by the huge power of the drilling gear twisted and loaded the structure like no other. It was all about production no matter what happened. 2W Taylor also supplied divers to help recover the accommodation module from the seabed and onshore in Orkney due to divers ability to use breathing equipment (SCBA), cutting gear and in general just do whatever needed done. God bless all those involved and their families in dealing with this horrible event.

My Grandad worked on this oil rig as, I've been told, a maintenance diver, he was on shore leave in Glasgow at the time when the rig exploded and had to watch all his friends die on TV. Was quite messed up, sadly I never got the chance to ask him about his work there but, I've always been interested about it. Its great to hear essentially what his role was while he worked there. After the incident he never went back into the sea ever again.

My Wife & I were married at Morpeth Registry Office on the 28th May 1988. The newly wedded couple that were married ahead of us were tragically separated when the husband was killed a few weeks later in this disaster. Always remember the happy look on both of their faces as they passed us wishing us both good luck for the future and us wishing them the same.

My father had just finished working on the rigs when this happened. He said many times the men in the industry all said that the Pipa Alpha would be the next big disaster for years before it happened.

Back in 92 i was working for a company called Trolex, they made safety systems for the coal and oil industry, after the Piper Alpha tragedy there was steps put into place to stop this ever happening again, i was on the team at Trolex to prototype several projects directly attributed to the Piper, my main project was the developement of a lighting system that was installed into the accomodation block,it would stay illuminated for hours after power was lost,and it would also keep illuminated at depth,i have to say that the thought of those poor souls who lost their lives drove me,regularly i think about them still to this day,i hope their family's are at peace with what happened that night,RIP guys.

This is such an outstanding, straightforward, no-melodrama, no-nonsense walkthrough of what happened. I really wish we had this kind of thorough, honest, and hysteria-free storytelling for, uh, just about everything.

I well remember this; even here in the US it was huge news. The "error cascade" is so common to these sort of disasters... it's not just one thing going wrong; it's a whole sequence of events, each of which were manageable... but sometimes the holes line up in the Swiss cheese. The term "Piper Alpha" is as permanently emblazoned in my brain as "Challenger Explosion".

I remember this accommodation block being towed to Flotta in the orkneys before opening up and removing the remains ….horrible job for anyone to do but had to be done and done with decorum and respect.

Piper Alpha is often cited alongside USS Forrestal as how bad responses and planning can turn survivable incidents into uncontrolled disasters

The the lad shown at the end of this video was a mate of mine, Davy Elliot. He jumped and survived. For the rest of his life he was a bitter about it and when we were out drinking he always said he would never trust anyone in authority again. He never worked after the disaster. This tragic loss of life reshaped the North Sea oil Industry and brought about huge changes in safety. It was a tragedy beyond words. RIP to all those who perished.