Piper Alpha: Fire in the night

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Discussion

entropy

5,403 posts

202 months

Saturday 13th July 2013
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A lot like 9/11. One of the guys in the doc said so when he said along the lines of: "now I know why people would rather jump"

RizzoTheRat

25,085 posts

191 months

Sunday 14th July 2013
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Crafty_ said:
Amazed that the guys who jumped from the helipad were not injured when they hit the water.
Did they actually say how many jumped from the helipad? They only interviewed one, could be several more jumped and didn't make it frown

eccles

13,720 posts

221 months

Sunday 14th July 2013
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theironduke said:
Just watched it on iplayer.

That was possibly the best documentary I've ever seen. I can't believe it was 1.5 hours long, it just felt so perfectly paced. Really good to have everything from people who were there, no narration from a random (no matter how famous) voice.

Tragic topic but very well executed.
Sadly it's rare these days that a 'good old fashioned' documentary is made.
I remember it well at the time, and it seems to have been totally out of the news, and almost, dare I say it, forgotten about.

It was nice to see the story given the time to be told properly.

Rollcage

11,327 posts

191 months

Sunday 14th July 2013
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RizzoTheRat said:
Crafty_ said:
Amazed that the guys who jumped from the helipad were not injured when they hit the water.
Did they actually say how many jumped from the helipad? They only interviewed one, could be several more jumped and didn't make it frown
Didn't see that answer given, but it seems a few people jumped off. I suppose that jumping in the dark would perhaps make it a degree less terrifying, I don't know. Choppy sees would probably help the impact as well.

Alfahorn

7,758 posts

207 months

Sunday 14th July 2013
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fathomfive said:
theironduke said:
Just watched it on iplayer.

That was possibly the best documentary I've ever seen. I can't believe it was 1.5 hours long, it just felt so perfectly paced. Really good to have everything from people who were there, no narration from a random (no matter how famous) voice.

Tragic topic but very well executed.
My sentiments exactly.

Every now and then a programme comes along which holds your attention to such a degree that you don't notice the passage of time.
Yep, just watched it.

Quite possibly one of the best television programmes I've ever seen full stop. Outstanding!

Jambo85

3,311 posts

87 months

Thursday 6th July 2023
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This is back up on iPlayer for anyone interested, 35 years today... Hard hitting stuff.

oobster

7,065 posts

210 months

Thursday 6th July 2023
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Doesn’t seem like 35 years ago.

V8FGO

1,644 posts

204 months

Thursday 6th July 2023
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cry
I was on a rig in yhe Dutch sector on the night

It was in the days of sending reports by telex, so I had gone up to the radio room around 0300 to be met by a distraught RO listening to the radio traffic
" It's big, really fking big".

HD Adam

5,144 posts

183 months

Friday 7th July 2023
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I was on the Piper Alpha for a wireline job about 2 weeks before it blew up eek

Got off there & was offshore on the FG McClintock in the SNS on the day it went up.

Very sobering.

Nico Adie

610 posts

42 months

Friday 7th July 2023
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Really great documentary.

My dad was an instrument tech on the Tartan the night the Piper went up, I can still remember the panic my mum went through that night when it was on the news. It really f***ed him up for a very long time. 30 tons of gas a second, you can't even begin to comprehend that.

RIP to the 167, and I sincerely hope Armand Hammer is rotting in a hell that I don't believe in.

AdeTuono

7,240 posts

226 months

Friday 7th July 2023
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HD Adam said:
I was on the Piper Alpha for a wireline job about 2 weeks before it blew up eek

Got off there & was offshore on the FG McClintock in the SNS on the day it went up.

Very sobering.
That's one that really should have been destroyed. No doubt it has by now.

Belle427

8,858 posts

232 months

Saturday 8th July 2023
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Harrowing viewing.
Seems crazy to me that no one could cut gas/oil supplies from piper itself in the event of an emergency.
Appreciate the control room was destroyed but i guess thats why safety systems have improved.

Halmyre

11,148 posts

138 months

Saturday 8th July 2023
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STV had been making a documentary series about the oil industry around that time and eventually devoted a whole episode to the disaster. At one point a helicopter incoming to the hospital is contacted by the co-ordinator "understand you are carrying four injured". There's a pause and the pilot replies "now carrying three injured", another pause and the co-ordinator replies "thank you".

I'd never before wept while watching something on telly.

Hill92

4,226 posts

189 months

Saturday 8th July 2023
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Halmyre said:
STV had been making a documentary series about the oil industry around that time and eventually devoted a whole episode to the disaster. At one point a helicopter incoming to the hospital is contacted by the co-ordinator "understand you are carrying four injured". There's a pause and the pilot replies "now carrying three injured", another pause and the co-ordinator replies "thank you".

I'd never before wept while watching something on telly.
It was RESCUE, following the work of RAF Search and Rescue at Lossiemouth. The Piper Alpha episode begins at 1:56:00 here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIq5UQxUJAI

The cameraman Paul Berriff was one of the producers of the Fire in the Night documentary. He was also in New York on 9/11 and survived the collapse of the South Tower while filming the unfolding scene.

Jambo85

3,311 posts

87 months

Monday 10th July 2023
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Belle427 said:
Harrowing viewing.
Seems crazy to me that no one could cut gas/oil supplies from piper itself in the event of an emergency.
Appreciate the control room was destroyed but i guess thats why safety systems have improved.
Yes indeed, I don't know how possible this would be with 70-80s technology though and the comms links were one of the first things to fail in any case. I'd also be interested to know if it's any different today? Hopefully so. Having read bits of the Cullen Inquiry over the weekend, the quantity of gas contained in the pipelines between Claymore, Tartan and Piper at 1000 psi is phenomenal and it would have taken too long to blow it down to safe pressures, not the minutes they had, again I'm not sure if other platforms have quicker means of dealing with such things now. However if oil production from other platforms had been stopped, this would have had an impact instantaneously and would certainly have delayed the rupturing of the gas riser. Paragraphs 7.37-40 of the inquiry which give the account of the events on Claymore are utterly baffling.