Piper Alpha: Oil Rig Disaster | The Leak | 1
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Gareth Perry Davies slides his sandblasting gun along a massive steel girder in front of him. Every few seconds, he kicks his fins a bit to stay level. Steadiness is important in underwater repair work. After a moment, he pulls back the gun and examines the patch of metal he's stripped of paint. It's not good news. He can see a crack. Every week, it seems like he finds something else in need of fixing on this rig.

It's 10pm on July 6th, 1988. Perry Davies works as a diver on the Piper Alpha oil rig in the North Sea. Piper Alpha is the world's largest oil drilling platform. It sits 110 miles off the east coast of Scotland and has been pumping oil from beneath the ocean floor for more than a decade.

Perry Davies is a slender man in his early 30s. Dark circles ring his eyes. A headlamp affixed to his yellow helmet casts an eerie glow. He's 50 feet below the surface, connected to the rig by an umbilical cord that pumps air into his helmet. It also keeps him in radio contact with his supervisor and powers his sandblasting gun.

Perry Davies looks down, and his headlamp illuminates a few feet of the algae-covered girder which stretches down into the darkness below. These giant steel legs hold up the Behemoth Rig. It weighs 34,000 tons and towers 289 feet above the ocean's surface.

As he examines the crack in the steel girder, he hears a voice through his headset. It's his supervisor, John Barr. "Colchester United picked up some new players last night." "Well, they might not finish last place then." "I wouldn't go that far." Perry Davies chuckles. Colchester United is his hometown football club. They're rivals of Barr's team, and the two men enjoy needling each other.

Barr often chats like this while the divers work. Perry Davies appreciates it. It passes the time in the cold, dark water. He's been working for 40 minutes now and has 20 minutes left on his shift. Perry Davies updates Barr on the crack, then continues sandblasting to remove more paint. The crack is even longer than he realized. The engineers are going to have their work cut out for them patching this one.

Suddenly, Perry Davies sees a white flash above him, like a car flicking its headlights on and off. Then he feels something, a deep thump, like a giant fist slamming into a boxing bag. Perry Davies looks up, confused. A moment later, the power to his sandblaster dies. He's instantly on guard. Has something shorted out above? Is he in danger of getting electrocuted?

Ten seconds later, there's another flare of light. This time, it's orange, and unlike before, it doesn't go away. Perry Davies speaks into his headset. "John, what's going on?" Barr doesn't respond. Instead, through his headset, Perry Davies hears chaos in the dive room up on the rig. Frantic shouts, alarm bells, what on earth is happening?

After an agonizing minute, Barr gets back on the line. "Gareth! Gareth! Ditch your gun! Get to the surface!" Perry Davies is stunned. Ditch his gun? It costs thousands of pounds, and the rig operators are notoriously cheap. Sometimes it feels like they treat the tools better than the men. "Did I hear you right, John? Ditch the gun?" "Yes. Yes. Get up here fast. There's been an explosion."

Perry Davies drops the heavy gun, letting it sink down into the inky water. Then he pirouettes and swims toward the diving bell that will bring him to the surface. He has no idea what's going on up there, but if it's enough to make Piper Alpha abandon tools in the ocean, it must be the most serious accident anyone on board has ever seen.

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From Wondery, I'm Mike Corey, and this is Against the Odds.

In the 1970s and 80s, drilling for oil in the North Sea was one of the most lucrative businesses in the world. There were billions of barrels of oil to recover from beneath the ocean bedrock, as well as huge stores of natural gas. One company in particular was cashing in: Occidental Petroleum, an American corporation that operated what was then the largest oil rig in the world, called Piper Alpha.

By 1988, 12 years since it first came online, Piper Alpha had made $25 billion in revenue for Occidental. Between its profits and its size, the rig earned the nickname "The Monster."

But in the summer of 1988, Piper Alpha would be called a monster for a different reason. Between 10 p.m. and midnight on July 6th, a series of mistakes led to explosions and a massive fire on board. 226 men were trapped on the burning platform. The Inferno would soon go down as one of the deadliest man-made disasters in history. This is Episode 1, The Leak.

Bob Ballantine cracks open another beer and tries to concentrate on the opera playing on his tape deck. He's sitting on a threadbare sofa in the apartment he shares with his wife, Pat Slater. It's a warm evening in late June, 1988, in Aberdeen, Scotland. At 45, Ballantine has decided to finally get his college degree.

Tonight's homework is for a music elective he's taking. He looks down at his worksheet and shakes his head in frustration. Who's he kidding? He has no idea what the answers are. Ballantine works as an oil rig electrician. He makes good money, far more than Pat, a music teacher. But he's always been jealous of her college degree, which is one of the reasons he decided to go back to school.

The truth is, he's in a sour mood because he's due back on Piper Alpha in just a few days. This upcoming shift will run for three weeks straight, a dreary prospect. He'll have to put his coursework on hold, but he's taking on the extra work to save up for a trip to France he and Pat are taking next month.

As Ballantine listens to an aria, he's irritated to hear Pat humming along. Pat suddenly hops off the couch and stomps out.

Ballantine feels ashamed. Why does he pick fights all the time? He did the same thing in his previous marriage, which ended in complete disaster. He's estranged from his ex-wife and children. He hasn't spoken to his 16-year-old daughter Amanda in years.

He rises and snaps off the tape player. Finally, he can think. But now he has to face what's really bothering him. Returning to Piper Alpha. Ballantine has been working on oil rigs for a decade, since before his beard went gray. Along the way, he's been fired a half dozen times for trying to unionize the workers. But he just doesn't see any other way to ensure safe working conditions.

He's lucky Piper Alpha hired him. Other Rigs have blacklisted him, which is another reason why he's eager to get his degree and find a different job. But he shouldn't take his frustrations out on Pat. He finds her sitting on the bed, wiping away tears. He sits down next to her. "Hey, I'm sorry. Look, I've been a jerk. You know how emotional I get around bad music."

"You don't deserve these, but I might as well give them to you now. They're an early birthday gift." She goes to the closet and takes down a wrapped box from a shelf. Ballantine opens it to find Nike tennis shoes inside. He's stunned. They must have cost 50 pounds, but they're exactly the shoes he wanted. Pat touches his hand. "They're for our trip to France." Ballantine leans over and kisses her. He can't wait for the trip.

But first, he has to get through the next three grueling weeks aboard Piper Alpha. Valve technician Alex Rankin unfolds a tall metal stepladder and starts to climb. Suspended just below the 20-foot ceiling is a labyrinth of industrial equipment. Dozens of pipes, valves, pumps, and cables. Rankin frowns and checks the paperwork in his hand. Number 504. Where the hell is it?

It's July 6th, 1988, in what's called the C-module of the Piper Alpha oil rig. It's barely 8 a.m., but it's already been a frustrating day. Rankin is a contractor whose firm makes specialized valves for Piper Alpha. They're vital for the rig's safety. If the pressure of natural gas in the pipes rises too high, the pipes could rupture. His company's valves prevent that by venting excess pressure automatically.

Over the past few months, Rankin and his assistant have been testing all 300 safety valves on the rig. It has been a nightmare assignment. He doesn't see his family for weeks on end, and the weather out here on the North Sea is blustery and cold, even in the summer.

The whole platform shakes whenever they're drilling, which is most of the time. You can't even fill a teacup because it'll spill. There's a constant stink of oil and chemicals too. Worst of all is the bureaucracy. The paperwork is maddening. This morning, Rankin wasted 20 minutes filling out a work request and then had to fill it out again because some nitpicky supervisor said he didn't do it properly. But it all finally ends today.

Rankin and his assistant are checking their last valve, and will catch a helicopter back to shore tonight. He cannot wait.

But first, he's got to find this last valve. As he looks around the maze of pipes crisscrossing the ceiling, he wonders who designed this cavernous space. C-Module is roughly the size of two football fields, but you can't see all the way across it because it's jammed with walls of pipes, banks of electrical equipment, and huge industrial motors.

The valve he's trying to find connects to pump A. Pump A is one of the two main pumps in C module that take natural gas and pipe it towards Scotland 110 miles away. Given that distance, both pump A and pump B are gigantic. The size of school buses.

The two pumps are crucial components of the rig. One of them has to be running at all times because natural gas powers the rig. If the pumps shut down, the rig loses power, and that means production shuts down too, at the cost of millions of dollars per day. So the safety valves that Rankin inspects have to work perfectly.

After several minutes of searching, he finally spots valve 504. It looks like a gray fire hydrant turn on its side. As he marks the spot, he sees his assistant Terence Sutton entering C module. Sutton flashes a thumbs up and calls out from the floor. Hey, Pompeii is shut down and disconnected from the grid. Good, good. Did you talk with the maintenance teams? Yeah, I did.

According to the company rules, Rankin and Sutton can't disconnect the valve to check it themselves, even though it's not that heavy. Instead, the rig's maintenance staff has to build some scaffolding up to it, then a separate team has to erect a small crane to lower it. But according to Sutton, there's been a delay.

They told me the paperwork request wasn't filled out right. Okay, then fix it! Yeah, we did fix it, but it took so long that the maintenance team had to go start another job. Now they can't be here until at least noon. Ah, noon? We're supposed to leave tonight! Rankin is furious. A four-hour delay because of some stupid paperwork.

He hurries down the step ladder and strides toward the exit. He's going to find the maintenance supervisor and get this straightened out. He's getting off this rig tonight if it's the last thing he does. James McNeil leans forward in his helicopter seat and looks down at the massive Piper Alpha oil rig beneath him. He can't help but shake his head in awe. A giant man-made structure sitting out here in the middle of the ocean.

It's mid-afternoon, July 6th, 1988. The 40-year-old McNeil is catching a chopper ride out to the Piper oil field to start his new job as a rescue worker stationed aboard a nearby ship. By law, all offshore rigs must have multiple support ships standing by in case something goes wrong.

McNeil looks over to see the pilot grinning at him and pointing down at the rig. That's the most expensive real estate on the planet. Wow. I believe it. Hey, what does each of these parts do? I'm new here. They didn't tell me much.

The pilot explains that oil and gas production happens within modules A, B, C, and D. Each one is painted yellow and looks starkly industrial, with pipes and pumps and girders everywhere. Oil drilling begins in A module, where a tower rises almost 300 feet above the surface of the water.

Inside the tower is a massive drill that draws raw, sludgy oil up from underground. The raw sludge then enters B module, where crude oil is separated from natural gas. C module then compresses the natural gas and pumps it toward the shore.

D-module contains generators and utilities that provide light and power to the rig. As the helicopter circles, McNeil points at stacks of what looked like white shipping containers crammed onto the top of the rig. The pilot nods. That's where the crew eats and sleeps. It's four stories tall. McNeil braces himself as the pilot lowers them to just 100 feet or so above the surface of the water, the helicopter's nose pointing at the rig.

The pilot directs McNeil's attention to the space below the modules. There are a dozen steel platforms here, each at a different height and connected by a maze of staircases. It looks chaotic, like an M.C. Escher drawing.

Then, supporting all this are the rig's six steel pillars. They look too skinny to hold all the weight above them. 34,000 tons, the pilot says. And it's all sitting here in the middle of the choppy, windswept North Sea, one of the stormiest bodies of water on Earth.

McNeil feels his weight press into the seat as the helicopter climbs again. Then the pilot banks toward the cluster of support ships, one of which is called the Silver Pit, bobbing in the water west of Piper Alpha. Silver Pit is a 138-foot-long fishing vessel that's been converted into a rescue ship. It's where McNeil will be stationed.

In the distance, he can also see Theros, which looks less like a traditional ship and more like a giant platform on pontoons the size of five football fields. In case of emergency, Theros will be the main rescue vessel. That's because it can send in helicopters and carry men off the rig. But the silver pit has an important role to play too.

The Silver Pit carries several Z-boats, speedy, semi-inflatable motorboats that can zip close to the rig and rescue survivors from the water. McNeil is the captain, or coxswain, of one of the rescue Z-boats.

McNeil gets back on the headset. The pilot says that in 1984, an explosion forced the evacuation of the whole rig. There have also been two fires this year alone. McNeil glances back at the gargantuan platform and remembers a joke he heard from a friend who works in the oil industry.

that Piper Alpha is likely to be the first oil rig on the moon when it blows sky high. Given the dangers involved, oil workers often have dark senses of humor. McNeil had laughed at the time, but after what the pilot just said, the joke suddenly seems a lot less funny.

Valve technician Alex Rankin hurries to a telephone on the wall of C-Module. On the way, he checks his watch. 5.40 p.m. If everyone moves quickly, they can still finish the job before the last helicopter flies out tonight.

After getting pump A shut down, Rankin and his assistant Terence Sutton have just finished inspecting valve 504. But they're behind schedule.

The work crew didn't complete the scaffolding until 2:00 p.m. Then Rankin had to locate the crane team to lower the valve. To his frustration, Rankin couldn't even haul the valve over to a workbench on his own. A separate team had to come with the wheelbarrow first, and of course, each step required more paperwork. The actual inspection took only 90 minutes, and Rankin didn't rush that. He's a professional.

The valve passed with flying colors, but now that his inspection is complete, he wants to put the valve back in place and catch the helicopter back to shore.

At 5:45 PM, the two-man crane team strolls into Module C. Rankin hurries up to them. The valve is ready to lift. Let's get this done! But the lead worker shakes his head. Hey listen, I wish we could. But it'll take too long and our supervisor definitely won't approve the overtime. No, c-come on! You can't be serious. We can finish this job in 20 minutes. I hear you, but our shift ends at 6 PM. On the dot.

Rankin begs them to radio their supervisor, but they tell him their boss won't approve the overtime. They'll just have to finish tomorrow. As they leave, Rankin seethes with frustration. He feels Sutton's hand on his shoulder. Yeah, I know, man. But it's just one more night, right? Want me to put the safety plate on? Rankin sighs and nods. Yeah, thanks. Where's the wrench?

With the valve removed, there's now a hole in a pipe leading away from pump A. According to the rig's rules, they have to cover this pipe with a steel disc about the size of a dinner plate. It's fastened with bolts, which they have to tighten with a wrench. But of course, they can't find a wrench. It's yet another hassle. Sutton finally throws his hands up in the air. Can't I just tighten the bolts with my fingers? It only needs to stay on overnight.

Rankin watches Sutton climb up the scaffolding with the plate. Tightening the bolts by hand is against regulations, but he's sick of Piper Alpha's rules. Besides, there's no real danger. The control room knows they can't turn pump A on. After all, they have plenty of paperwork telling them so.

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Diver Gareth Perry-Davies hurries up the stairs of the barracks on the Piper Alpha oil rig. He's heading for the rec room above D-Module. It's nearly 6 p.m. on July 6th, a few hours before his shift tonight, and he's hoping to call his wife. The rec room is swanky compared to other rigs he's worked on. It's outfitted almost like a sports bar, with pool tables, a half-dozen TVs, and three telephone booths for free calls back to shore.

But all three booths are busy when he reaches them. So Perry Davies takes a seat to wait and cracks open a book he brought. Before long, he's distracted by what he hears. The nearest telephone booth is occupied by one of his supervisors, dive inspector Ed Punchard. Punchard is 32 and built like a rugby player, tall and muscular, with dark hair.

The booths aren't enclosed, so Perry Davies can't help but overhear his boss' conversation. "Honey, that doesn't mean we're giving up on the dream." "No, it's just not practical now when I'm working here, you know?" "Of course I still love you." "No, what do you mean?"

Perry Davies tenses. He knows Punchard and his wife recently abandoned their plans to buy a home in the Azores, off the coast of Portugal. Now it sounds like Punchard's time away on the rig is causing even more strain on their marriage. Perry Davies can relate. He has two small children, and he missed both of their birthdays while out here.

Rigmen can make great money, but it's a hard, dangerous life. Accidents are common and sometimes deadly due to falls or getting crushed by industrial equipment. Their wives live in constant fear of a midnight phone call. Rig workers often joke that every one of them has a Rolex, a beach condo in France, and six months to live.

Punchard finally hangs up. When he exits the booth, he seems startled to see Perry Davies there. Perry Davies stands up, feeling guilty for eavesdropping. "Hey, Ed. Everything okay with you, man?" Punchard stiffens. "Everything's fine. Just a little tiff with Vicky. See you tonight." Then he ducks past Perry Davies and exits the rec room.

Perry Davies watches him go. All marriages have problems, but life on the rig magnifies them and introduces new ones. As Perry Davies starts the dial, he thinks again about a decision he's been weighing. As lucrative as his job is, it might be time to start looking for a new one while he still can.

Bob Vernon swings open the door of the control room on the Piper Alpha oil rig and strides inside. It's 6 p.m. sharp, the start of the night shift.

The control room sits above D-module. It's the rig's brain and nerve center, responsible for overseeing all aspects of oil production. While most of the working parts of the rig look dirty and grimy, the control room is clean, sleek, and modern. It's modeled after the launch centers at NASA, with banks of instruments and computer monitors for processing data from everywhere on board.

Vernon is the lead production operator on the overnight shift. And as he enters the room, he greets his number two, Jeff Bolins. All good tonight? Yeah, pretty smooth sailing. Although we've got a phone book of paperwork. Bolins thumps down a sheaf of papers. Vernon sighs.

To reach his console, he has to edge past Bolin's, and it's a tight fit. The control room may be modern looking, but it's cramped. When he finally sits down, the two men's knees are practically touching.

Once he's settled, Vernon peruses the papers. As lead production operator, his job involves making sure that oil keeps flowing ashore. That's been tricky this month. Piper Alpha is doing a lot of summer maintenance, like repainting its underwater girders and inspecting them for cracks.

In addition, they're doing new construction. Piper Alpha isn't alone on the North Sea. There are three other rigs within a dozen miles, owned by other companies. The Tartan Rig, the Claymore Rig, and one called MCP-01. Those other rigs have contracts with Piper Alpha to help process oil and gas. And right now, Piper is adding a riser from another rig.

A riser is a fat pipe that transports petroleum from the ocean floor to the rig, or from one rig to another. Building a riser is complicated work, and there are several ships nearby helping out. Still, despite all the new hurdles, Piper Alpha's owner, Occidental Petroleum, decided not to shut down oil production this month. Which makes things complicated on board, and produces loads of paperwork.

Vernon finishes flipping through. He'll go over it later in more detail. The main thing is that pump A is still offline for maintenance. But that's no problem. Pump B is running fine, and the rig only needs one of the pumps to stay functional. He glances at another document. It's the rig's production numbers. Over the past day, Piper Alpha has pumped close to 140,000 barrels to shore.

He grabs a calculator and starts punching in numbers. The newspaper today said that oil is slumping, selling for just 14 US dollars per barrel. That means Piper Alpha's revenue for the past 24 hours was just under 2 million. That's good, but it's not great. With low prices, Piper Alpha has to focus on volume. The higher their production rate, the better. So Vernon simply has to keep the oil flowing to shore at all times.

Mechanic Erlin Grieve pops some jelly beans into his mouth and squeezes down a row of movie theater seats on the Piper Alpha rig. Tonight, they're showing Caddyshack at 8pm. The rig's theater is plush, with tiered seating, comfy chairs, and a real projector booth in back. It's actually nicer than the theater in Grieve's hometown back in Scotland. He loves movies, and the free showings are one of the few genuine perks of life on the rig.

Grieve sits down next to his friend, Roy Carey. Carey is an instrument technician, while Grieve's job involves maintaining the natural gas pumps in C-Module. With Pump A down for maintenance, his focus today was to keep Pump B running. As he settles in, Grieve nudges Carey. "We're in for a treat tonight," Carey snorts.

Grief shrugs. Carrie can be a sourpuss. And he's right that men often fall asleep during movies. But they work hard all day, so it's understandable.

Besides, he's excited for Caddyshack. Like many Scots, he does love golf, and he finds American comedies hilarious. Most of all, he's just looking forward to a quiet night. He pops more jelly beans into his mouth. As the room goes dark and the projector kicks on, he starts humming along to the music and watches the title credits roll.

Diver Gareth Perry-Davies zips up his wetsuit as he enters the dive control room on the Piper Alpha rig. It's a small room with a bookshelf of dive manuals and a communications console so supervisors can speak with divers during their shifts. Perry-Davies has a briefing at 9:10 p.m. and he's a few minutes early. He nods at the two other divers present then wanders past them toward the corner.

One of his supervisors, Stan McLeod, has set up a little garden here with a pot of dirt and a sun lamp. He's trying to cultivate some apple seeds. Perry Davies fingers the small green shoots. It's nice to see something green on this harsh industrial rig.

The dive control room is on the 68th level of the rig. That is, it sits 68 feet above the water. Modules A through D sit above them at 83 feet. The main rig control room is above that at 107. But Perry Davies and the other dozen divers rarely go to those levels. In fact, the divers tend to stick to themselves. They're all in little clique.

At 9.10, the door opens and dive inspector Ed Punchard enters. After overhearing Punchard's emotional phone conversation, Perry Davies tries to catch Punchard's eye, but he's all business now. He opens a folder in his hands and starts. Perry Davies, you're up first tonight. You're sandblasting the northeast leg. The submersibles detected a possible crack.

Perry Davies nods. Sandblasting underwater is tiring work, but uncomplicated. Meanwhile, the other divers get assigned a different task, inspecting the new riser being added to make sure it's securely bolted to the rig. As he wraps up, Punchard asks if there's any questions. Perry Davies raises his hand. Can you confirm that the water intake pumps are switched from automatic to manual?

The other divers murmur at this news.

The intake pumps suck water into the emergency sprinklers on board the rig. During dives, those pumps need to be switched from automatic to manual. Otherwise, a diver could get sucked inside if a fire alarm goes off above. Some idiot smoking in the wrong place could set off the alarms and result in a gruesome death for a diver. The pumps can always be turned on manually in case of an actual fire.

Punchard agrees to confirm that the pumps aren't on automatic mode. There are no other questions, so he ends the meeting. Perry Davies heads off to don his flippers and helmet for what should be a straightforward night of work. Lead production operator Bob Vernon rubs his eyes. He didn't sleep well, and he's tired.

He frowns to see that it's only 9:45 PM. Eight more hours left on his shift. He turns to his number two, Jeff Bolins. - Ugh, it's gonna be a long one. I'm gonna step outside for a smoke. Can you hold things down? - But before Bolins can answer, an alarm sounds. Vernon's eyes dart to an instrument panel and he grimaces to see the red light flashing there. It's for pump B. The alarm means that it's stopped working.

This is bad news. Pump A and Pump B feed natural gas to the rig's generators. One of them has to be running at all times or the rig will lose its main source of power. And he knows Pump A was shut down earlier for maintenance and still isn't back online.

Both men move quickly. Bolins hits a button to silence the alarm, then hops on the radio to call mechanic Erlen Grieve. Grieve, we need you. Pump B just tripped. Meanwhile, Vernon hurries past him for the door. Outside, he walks down a short, starkly lit hallway, then turns down a flight of stairs. He's already running through scenarios in his head.

There's enough residual natural gas in the generators to keep the rig running for a while. And the rig does have some emergency diesel generators for backup power, but they're old and can't provide more than an hour of juice. So if they can't fix the pump soon, preferably within an hour, the rig will lose power completely, forcing an emergency shutdown of all equipment on board.

If that happens, it could damage expensive pumps, drill bits, and wellheads. And it could be weeks before the rig could be brought back online. It would be a financial disaster and a black mark on Vernon's career. Vernon's stomach knots up just thinking about it. At the bottom of the stairs, he enters another hallway leading towards C module. He starts to double time it. He's got to get pump B working again at all costs.

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Head over to Symbiotica.com and use code ODDS for 20% off and free shipping on your subscription order. Bob Vernon throws open the door and enters the cavernous C module on the Piper Alpha rig. He winds his way around massive pipes and banks of instruments toward the back of the hangar-sized room. His eyes are already scanning the school bus-sized pump B, searching for what might have caused the shutdown. Ah, what the?

10 feet away, he slips on something and nearly falls. After catching himself, he looks at the floor. Lubrication oil has leaked all over, and the trail leads right to pump B. A moment later, he hears mechanic Erlin Greaves shout behind him. "I'm missing Caddyshack for this. What's the matter?" Vernon points to the oil. "What's leaking?" "Don't know. Have to open up the pump to see. Can we try a restart first?"

Grieve agrees to try. Nine times out of ten, a simple restart will get a pump working again. They speedwalk over to the electrical panels on the far side of the room. There are a dozen gray panels on the wall. Grieve points to the one for pump B. Vernon opens the hinged metal door and sees a circuit breaker inside. A simple switch. He snaps it off, waits a few seconds, and flips it back on.

Then he reaches over and pulls the start handle to fire up the pump. Across the room, they hear Pump B's motors rev. Vernon feels a flicker of hope. Then the motor dies. Vernon tries flipping the switch again, and the same thing happens. The knot in Vernon's stomach pulls even tighter.

Normally, they'd just switch over to pump A, but it's down for maintenance. He tells Grieve to keep trying to restart pump B. Then he turns to run back upstairs to the control room. He's 90% sure there's no maintenance work happening on pump A now, and therefore no reason he can't restart it. But he needs to double check and make certain.

Production operator Jeff Bolins jumps in his seat as two more alarms start blaring in the control room. He searches the control panel and finds two flashing lights. It's more bad news. Two compressors, which pressurize the incoming natural gas to get it ready to pump ashore, have just gone offline in C-Module.

Is this related to Pump B going down or something else altogether? It's hard to tell. He'll have to radio down to mechanic Erlen Grieve to ask.

Bolins punches a few buttons at his console to silence the alarms, but they keep blaring. He tries to reach Grief on the radio. Grief! Grief! Can you hear me? The compressors are down. Repeat that. I don't copy. The compressors! They're down! He keeps trying to explain, but it's no use. Grief can't hear him over the alarms.

Thankfully, Bob Vernon returns to the control room a minute later. Bolins explains about the alarms. Vernon frowns, then grabs the stack of maintenance paperwork from his desk. Have you heard anything definite about Pump A still being down for maintenance? No, but I haven't looked into it. Vernon flips hurriedly through the stack. No, see, I'm not finding anything here. They must have finished checking all the pressure valves. Can you fill out a restart form for me? I'm heading down to bring it back online.

When he's alone again, Bolins removes a metal plate to expose the control panel's wiring. Maybe he can kill the alarms this way. He grabs a flashlight from his desk to study the circuits.

But a second later, yet another alarm goes off. This triggers a whole cascade of other sirens and flashing lights. Bolins tries to make sense of what he's seeing, but he can't. What on earth is going on in Module C? Mechanic Erlen Greve flips the switch in the electrical panel and tries again to start Pump B. But it's no use. It's not even revving now. It's totally dead.

Grieve checks his watch. It's 9.58 p.m. He wonders whether they'll have to switch over to backup diesel power soon. That will buy them an hour or so before the rig goes completely dark. At that moment, Bob Vernon returns, breathing hard, as if he just ran here. He nods toward the electrical panel. Any luck? No.

Grieve shakes his head no. Without a word, Vernon hurries off toward the pumps. Grieve follows, expecting him to turn toward pump B. Instead, Vernon moves toward pump A. There, he stops, bites his lip, and starts studying the crowded ceiling above the pump. The labyrinth of pipes and wires. A contractor was checking a valve today.

Vernon doesn't answer. He resumes walking around, craning his neck and scrutinizing the pipes. Finally, he stops. Grieve is startled to hear this. He hadn't heard that Pump A was back online, but Vernon's already heading toward the electrical panels and snaps at Grieve to point out the right one.

Vernon opens the panel, reaches inside and starts flipping switches to restore power. Then he walks over toward the pump startup buttons with Grieve trailing behind him. The buttons are located behind a wall of pipes running floor to ceiling. The panel consists of two buttons, one green and one black. Pushing the black one allows natural gas to flow into the pumps. The pumps work best upon startup when there's already some gas in the lines.

Vernon punches the black button and there's a hiss of gas. He holds the button down for 30 seconds, letting the natural gas fill the injection lines. While he's doing this, Grieve hears a squawk of static from his radio. "What's going on down there?" It sounds like Jeff Bolin's in the control room, but there's a chorus of alarms blaring behind him and Grieve can't make out what he's saying.

Grieve turns to tell Vernon that Bolin's is calling, but before he can say anything, he sees Vernon punch the green button to start pump A. Grieve cocks his ears, expecting to hear it rev, but once again, nothing happens. Grieve's shoulders slump, and Vernon looks furious. He gestures for Grieve to hand him the radio.

Then, Greve hears a big whoosh, like the sound of a lighting gas stove, only it's a thousand times louder than any stove he's heard in his life. A split second later, over Vernon's shoulder, he sees the orange flare of a gigantic fireball, and it's rushing straight at them.

This is the first episode of our four-part series, Piper Alpha Oil Rig Disaster.

A quick note about our scenes. In most cases, we can't exactly know what was said, but everything is based on historical research. If you'd like to learn more about this event, we recommend the books Fire in the Night by Stephen McGinty and Death and Oil by Brad Mattson. I'm your host, Mike Corey. Sam Kean wrote this episode. Our editor is Steve Fennessy. Sound design by Rob Schilliga. Audio engineer is Sergio Enriquez.

Welcome to the Offensive Line. You guys, on this podcast, we're going to make some picks, talk some s**t, and hopefully make you some money in the process. I'm your host, Annie Agar.

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