Oil Rig Disasters

February 14, 2007 8:12 AM

Oil Rig Disasters--Deadliest, most expensive, blowouts, sinkings. Building a rig. Barrels of rig pictures. NOAA's archive of spill pictures. ROVs, rigs, vessels. All kind of Canadian rig (and related) pictures. More.
posted by OmieWise (19 comments total)

Yes! I love oil rigs!
posted by thirteenkiller at 8:14 AM on February 14, 2007

Let me know when they're all being recycled for scrap.
posted by crowman at 8:20 AM on February 14, 2007

My dad was involved in the construction of this one.
posted by LunaticFringe at 8:22 AM on February 14, 2007

I want more pictures of the little things.

When I'm confronted with space ships, ocean liners, oil rigs, etc, I'm not thinking "What's it look like from a helicopter?" but "What're the toilets like?"
posted by kmennie at 8:45 AM on February 14, 2007

You know, since I'm actually typing this from here, I'm not sure I really want to look at the disasters page.

The toilets are as bad as you probably expect. If there's enough interest I'll post a picture tonight (I'm working nights so I'll be going to bed soon).
posted by thatwhichfalls at 8:51 AM on February 14, 2007 [5 favorites]

Whoa, that's cool!
posted by OmieWise at 9:00 AM on February 14, 2007

I had a lecture by one of the senior guys on the investigation of what went wrong on Piper Alpha. Scary stuff - apparently pretty much anyone who obeyed the emergency instructions got suffocated/carbonised, only those who ignored them, came out on the other side of the rig and jumped in the sea had any chance of survival. Basically, the emergency plan was far from up to the task of keeping people alive in the particular scenario.
posted by biffa at 9:08 AM on February 14, 2007

Dishwasher Pete on an oil rig.
posted by The corpse in the library at 9:14 AM on February 14, 2007

crowman: Let me know when they're all being recycled for scrap.

There's more than one way to recycle an oil rig.
posted by Western Infidels at 9:22 AM on February 14, 2007

The corpse in the library: Dishwasher Pete on an oil rig.

Is thislife.org defunct? I can't get there, and Google's cache is a blank page.
posted by Western Infidels at 9:29 AM on February 14, 2007

Is thislife.org defunct?

It works for me. I just found that link for the first time a few minutes ago.
posted by The corpse in the library at 9:31 AM on February 14, 2007

Coincidentally this post appears one day before the 25th anniversary of the Ocean Ranger disaster off the coast of Newfoundland. All 84 aboard were lost, including 56 Newfoundlanders - a devastating loss still felt in my home province.

(Numerous contemporaneous news clips available from the CBC's archive.)
posted by hangashore at 10:00 AM on February 14, 2007

Forgot to mention: one of the men lost on the Ocean Ranger was a classmate of mine in kindergarten and elementary school, and a student of my dad's in trades school.

For Craig, one of eighty-four. You are all missed.
posted by hangashore at 10:07 AM on February 14, 2007

thatwhichfalls, you are my new hero. i love ships/rigs etc etc and now, by default, you.
posted by cardamine at 11:28 AM on February 14, 2007

thatwhichfalls -- post pictures!
posted by blahblahblah at 6:40 PM on February 14, 2007

Here's a few shots I took this evening - yes, I know I'm a terrible photographer.

I was going to take some on the drill floor (always the most photogenic bit of the rig) but things are a little tense out here right now, so I'm staying away from there.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 12:11 AM on February 15, 2007

Thanks, thatwhichfalls. Very interesting. More, more!
posted by The corpse in the library at 9:25 AM on February 15, 2007

There's some more uploading now - we have a rather narrow data tube here so it'll take a while.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 9:31 AM on February 15, 2007

the very excellent book Inviting Disaster: Lessons From the Edge of Technology" talks about some of the engineering failures that fed into the Ocean Ranger disaster.

It's a really good read if you like stories about engineering disasters.
posted by rmd1023 at 7:36 PM on February 16, 2007