More thoughts on Deep Horizon's Final Hours.. from Engineering Ethics Blog

http://engineeringethicsblog.blogspot.com/2010/12/night-to-remember-on-deepwater-horizon.html

Good Pearl..

"Meetings  are an addictive, highly self-indulgent activity that corporations and other organizations habitually engage in only because they cannot actually masturbate." -Dave Berry

Deep Horizon's final hours provides valuable lessons for the field

If you didn't catch it this weekend or don't subscribe to the New York Times (who doesn't??), the front page story titled "Deep Horizon's Final Hours" is well worth the read.  The story covers the various equipment and operational/human faults that incremently (and allegedly) led to failure of the final well seal, blowout, exposion, and emaergency evacuation of the rig.  There are many lessons and reminders to be gleaned for the field operator, particularly if you're involved in confined space and/or dive work, or furthermore conducting such operations in hazardous environments.  As you would imagine, the article really had me thinking about company safety practices and standards, regular training and rehearsing on reaction to emergency situations.  But it goes further, digging into the questions like 'is this procedure we're practing so much and hammering into out skulls even adequate or enough to address the potential threat?', and 'who has the authority to override and standard procedure or checklist in the heat of the moment out there?'  'How many other bugs and surprises in the system are lying in wait for that first component to fail, ready to snowball on me?'   I recall in my military days that space operations was extremely checklist-oriented, and did not typically even leave opportunity for "manual overides" by superior officers in those emergency procedures.  We were often told in training and practice that as long as you stick to the checklist, you're golden and nobody could touch you no matter what the result was.  Nowadays I reside in the gray world of 'engineering judgement', where black and white checklists can be overriden at anytime as needed per the situation.  The Captain on this rig apparently overrode the decision of the operator to hit the emergency disconnect switch per protocol... the gal supposedly acknowledged, silenced and basically failed to act upon the many gas warnings per protocol... The best laid plans and procedures can certainly go to pot in the fog of war.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/26/us/26spill.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=all

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