Deepwater Horizon: Fire and Greed in the Gulf of Mexico

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Credits:
Host - Simon Whistler
Author - Chase Kiddy
Producer - Jennifer Da Silva
Executive Producer - Shell Harris
Business inquiries to [e-mail]

[@geographicstravel]

Check out Squarespace: squarespace.com/geographics for 10% off on your first purchase.

[@N-U-B]

[@saeedafyouni619]

Deepwater Horizon was also Simon Whistler's pseudonym while he worked for MI6 and MI5.

[@Styxswimmer]

Do an episode on the Marianna trench.

[@dazaspc]

19:55 What is this the pot calling the kettle black?

[@wayfarerzen3393]

You forgot to mention the use of Corexit, a chemical banned in almost every other country in the world, to submerge and disperse the oil slick by making it break up into microscopic droplets, making it much less visible but very much still there and very much still horribly toxic. Caustic greed indeed.

[@Scottocaster6668]

"Business executives and Infants are two of the types of people who need to be reminded of this" Great line.

[@nonnaurbisness3013]

"Only types"

[@Scottocaster6668]

@@nonnaurbisness3013 👍Right

[@thatguy-pl8py]

My step dad had friends that died out there. If it means anything, he appreciates the video and the respect towards the attention to detail

[@levibeebe9100]

My condolences man....

[@Adam-zb5kk]

I'm really sorry to hear that. I resent that this is labeled an "accident." I hope anyone who reads this realizes that the risks they took ensured this would eventually happen. The financial reparations BP had to pay and the deaths of those who worked on the rig are, to them, just the cost of doing business.

[@zinussan50]

My condolences to them

[@TheLittlered1961]

I feel for your dad's friends. Personally feel that this video has to much narrative and not enough facts. Simon loves the leftest view of oil bad. As any catastrophic event, there was not one cause for this event. It was a culmination of events. I strongly advise you to watch other docs on this subject. There were so many great docs out there that do not have a narrative.

[@TheLittlered1961]

@@Adam-zb5kk You do realize that this was not all BP's fault. This was a culmination of companies and employees fault. There are a lot of places to point the finger.

[@zanedavis9020]

My childhood neighbor was one of the men that died in that accident. I remember how much impact it had on our community more than a 100 miles from the coast. It was a tragic loss that should have never happened.

[@superkang7448]

Bit of a clarification on the nitrified cement thing (which you may have simplified for clarity). Pumping cement down to that level requires such enormous pressure that that pressure can fracture the rock itself. So they fill the cement with nitrogen bubbles to reduce the viscosity and pressure required to pump. The point being that these wells are so deep that they are right on the edge of being produceable. The nitrogen bubbles in the cement can lead to voids forming in the cement job. These would have been found by the cement bond log that BP/TransOcean chose not to do.

[@davidgalinat4257]

Sounds like they tried to drill too deep even for an technologically advanced rig like Deepwater Horizon.

[@scottmoon9752]

Correct.

[@rexringtail471]

I guess you're getting pore pressure to fight against hydrostatic pressure and reservoir pressure

[@tyvekhomewrap9164]

"Few things are more American than dramatizing a tragedy after enough time has passed." Well said, Simon, well said.

[@kristiskinner6485]

Define enough time. This is America sooo 24 hours?

[@andrewkelly1337]

Brits don't even wait

[@alexrossouw7702]

They drilled so greedily and so deep that they found a Balrog

[@ratintimbs4553]

smh they learned nothing from dwarves

[@wayfarerzen3393]

They Dug Too Deep

[@hughjass2640]

*Cthulhu

[@pedrolopez8057]

When the dark powers are running your economy

[@yes0r787]

That feeling...

[@brentgranger7856]

If the oil industry were honest: Safety officer: "Be safe and take no shortcuts! That way if something happens, we can say YOU screwed up and didn't follow safety protocols." 30 minutes later --> "We're behind schedule, so we want you to take any steps to get back on track. Time is money! Safety of the environment and you be damned!" This hypocrisy is why I no longer work in the oil industry!

[@12skippy21]

While the oil industry has a higher direct impact, I can confirm the food and drink industry is no different. They suddenly care though when you get a major incident, rest of the time there is no money available.

[@mcdon2401]

Think many large businesses have that attitude towards safety. Safety first, until it costs money...

[@gordonlawrence1448]

I worked in Aerospace and was fixing commercial passenger aircraft. On one occasion I worked 190 hours in 10 days. That leaves just 5 hours a day to eat, sleep, shower etc. How the hell is that safe? I got so sleep deprived it was inevitable I would make a mistake. I quit at that point.

[@AtemiRaven]

There is a similar reason I no longer work in insurance sales. The company I worked for would charge a premium for various types of specific insurance, then look for any little reason to blame everything on the benefactor and not pay up. Then if it was ruled not to be their fault, try to find a piece of fine print and interpret it in a weird way. Then only after exhausting all possible technicalities would they actually give an insurance pay out. Any large company does things like this and will find any way to make as much money as possible, while paying as little attention to laws, safety and the well being of others as possible. Then blame everyone but themselves when they fuck up and get sued. That's pretty much why I work as a bartender for a local pub now instead of for a giant mammoth of a company.

[@dannymccune1888]

Nabael - these days, if a customer leaves the bar and runs into a lamp post he'll blame the bartender for letting him drive home. About 20 years ago a drunk in Bowling Green, Kentucky, squeaked through a State Police sobriety checkpoint, then crashed his car and tried to sue the State Police for not arresting him. BP got caught red-handed and there was really no one else to blame. Maybe they considered trying to blame some of the dead guys. I still won't buy gas (or anything else) from them.

[@coffeeordeath5284]

I lived in Florida my whole life and when this happened, a few months later we started to get acid rain that left a powdery substance all over EVERYTHING whatever it was produced chemical burns and left holes on all our plants. My best guess was it was the Corexit they were spraying to disperse the oil and it got carried inland by the sea breeze, fell in the rain etc. This happened for about two months. Shit was horrible.

[@lukeehrkepiano5061]

Nagga Lotus wow... that’s insane. Thanks for sharing

[@davelehti4000]

That's crazy, media forgot to report on that...

[@ghazghkullthraka9714]

I heard somewhere that it can turn your hair green. That happen to you?

[@coffeeordeath5284]

@@ghazghkullthraka9714 No, I stayed out of and avoided the rain for almost a year after that.

[@shioyoutube9041]

That’s awful but I’m kinda not surprised, that Corexit stuff is awfully toxic, I remember reading into it and found that it might have actually caused more trouble than the oil would’ve, and even when it worked it didn’t even destroy the oil it just broke it up and dispersed it. And from what I read Corexit wasn’t really meant to be used anymore since it’s so toxic, but BP was able to get permission to use it anyway, and they went on to use wayyyy more of it than it might’ve actually needed, and there was a bit of a conspiracy theory that they didn’t want to pay to safety dispose of these dangerous chemicals so they threw them all over the spill even when it wasn’t needed just to use it up since that way they wouldn’t need to pay for disposal. Apparently a bunch of Corexit landed on both professional and amateur rescue/cleanup workers and gave many of them chemical burns, but they never got reimbursed.

[@RavenerAlpha]

As someone who was in school in Louisiana at the time of this, it was a crazy time. Half the day we'd be glued to the news watching what happened. Even as a teenager I was pretty shocked at how badly it was handled.

[@soren4915]

The Deepwater Horizon movie kinda hit close to home for me. My father worked for 20 years on service rigs throughout Alberta, Canada; he has almost died more times than I'd care to know about. Hes been hit with sour gas, almost crushed by equipment many times over. Im glad he moved away from the patch and still here to tell stories because his good luck couldn't go on much longer

[@dannymccune1888]

Someone at BP mentioned praying to God for help. Jon Stewart, on *The Daily Show* said something like, "God hid that oil under a mile of water and beneath five more miles of sea floor. That should have been enough."

[@alexeipistoun9783]

But ones as profitable are rare

[@CrazyBear65]

@@alexeipistoun9783 Are we humans or Ferengi?

[@ellenm1228]

Supadupa Swaggascoopa Jon Stewart lives on a farm and rescues pit bulls lmao, he doesn’t have private jets and shit just because he can afford to.

[@Darkfranchise]

And the moon is 200 thousand miles away through a death vacuum.

[@CalMariner]

Haha yes! Especially since they think their god is in control, so this is all in it's plan?

[@lhead85]

The monologue at the end of this episode is brilliantly written and presented. Well done Simon on the presentation and Chase on the writing.

[@planetdisco4821]

I was working in a gas refinery in the Northern Territory of Australia as a rigger when the movie deepwater came out and went and saw it at the cinemas when I was on leave. I was actually quite impressed with how Accurate the portrayal of life on a rig or refinery was. Normally a Hollywood production looks like what a set designer thinks an oil rig should look like rather than basing it on reality. Not to mention the culture and greed from the management aspect. Even the whole “good ole boys” down south accents were correct! It’s really like that! They even chew tobacco! I always thought that was a myth from the old west until I saw it being done. The bravery of the crew evacuating the rig moved me to tears, like me, they’re just regular guys working in a tough and dangerous industry

[@maxmaddest9010]

While BP undoubtedly deserve a share of blame, their subcontractors Halliburton and TransOcean would probably have had to share a hell of a lot more of the blame and compensation too if they hadn't deliberately destroyed their data, A US court gave the US subcontractors a ridiculously small fine for illegally destroying evidence.

[@notmenotme614]

Isn’t BP responsible for overseeing / supervising their sub contractors. If I pay someone to do a job, I’d make sure they actually do it correctly. So why can’t BP

[@snodrod420]

So proud to be an American.

[@zachyoung5598]

Absolutely! Halliburton's dodgy cement job is the main reason for the blow out (that and BP's insistence on time saving corner cutting).

[@yes0r787]

Biz as usual

[@jedgrahek1426]

Thanks for the information... when I got to the end and f'ing Halliburton was brought up, and they were the source of the material that failed and caused the whole thing, I knew there had to be more to it. Dick Cheney strikes again.

[@magnumcipher4971]

Simon. I’d like to start off by saying you always do a wonderful job conveying these stories, but you’ve outdone yourself with this one. I feel as if I can speak on the subject with more vigor and knowledge than most, having worked in the offshore and deep water exploration and drilling for two decades. Public opinion is one thing, but the truth is always more complicated. I hold a credential from the USCG; Offshore Installation Manager, or OIM. For reference, Kirt Russell’s character in the movie was the OIM license holder onboard the Deepwater Horizon upon the tone of the blowout. What most have failed to realize is the responsibility of this license holder aboard an offshore installation. The OIM is the end all, be all, alpha and omega, and has the ultimate authority over and responsible for every person on the vessel. Period. BP leases the rig and it’s services from Trans Ocean. Trans Ocean owned the rig, and appointed their own personnel to ensure its operational status is held to the rigorous standards and legal requirements of the governing bodies in whatever region of the world the rig is operated within. Of course BP, and every other oil company ever, pushes the leased drilling rigs and their crews to the absolute legal edge of operational efficiency. After all, at $500,000 a day for the rig alone, it’s easy to see how a lack of efficiency can be detrimental to a company’s bottom line. When the oil company representatives (known in the industry as “company men”) onboard these drilling rigs push too far, direct the work to be done outside of the law, break safety regulations or demand that work continue even with critical equipment being compromised, it is the SOLE responsibility, both legally and morally, of the onboard OIM, Offshore Installation Manager, to shut the operation down until the equipment is in proper working order, or any other deficiencies in operations are rectified. The OIM is responsible in every way imaginable, for each and every soul aboard the vessel. He is the Ultimate Authority in Charge. A framed copy of his license is placed on the wall in the bridge of every vessel of the type, letting all who come onboard know who is in command. The true failure and root cause of the disaster falls in the lap of Trans Ocean, and directly on the shoulders of the acting OIM onboard. Will there be blow-back with an OIM halting operations? Absolutely. It comes with the job. These men are well aware of the fact, and their $300-$500K salaries reflect this responsibility. It’s also worth mentioning that I knew men aboard this rig, even one of the men who perished in the initial explosion. I was also drilling on a Gusto P-10000 drillship in 2015, just a few hundred feet from the wellhead and wreckage of this very well in question after BP sold its leasing rights to a large mining firm Freeport McMoran (FMOG), who then sold it to Anadarko in late 2016. It wasn’t a particularly complex or abnormally difficult formation to drill mind you. This type of well has been completed safely countless times the world over. Human error caused this disaster. Those of us inside the industry know this reality all too well as we face it ever time we leave our homes for weeks at a time to climb aboard these mammoth floating islands of steel and sweat. For what it’s worth, the Deepwater Horizon disaster changed the world forever, the most influential changes came to the drilling industry itself. Thanks again, Simon.

[@TomAndersonn]

Was gonna say too long didn't read but I did and it was a good read. Thanks for the insight

[@aliceinyoutubeland5436]

i really appreciate your comment, thank you

[@bradwatson2085]

Come to think of it, I don’t believe I ever heard of anybody having stop work authority until after this happened.

[@scarymsmary]

Aaaaand here we are setting the ocean on fire today. "We're sorry."

[@JohnnyTromboner]

Safety is our fir- third priority!

[@erinjackson6243]

Thank you for taking an objective look at the Deepwater disaster. It was so hard to find honest, non political, information while the well was still actively leaking. I hope BP and other oil companies learned from this mistake.

[@SkuLLetjaH]

Noone really paid for it. The people responsible for the toxic greedy company culture were fired and given cozy jobs elsewhere. The fines weren't paid with their money. This happening again is merely a matter of time.

[@thomasneal9291]

Remember the Exxon Valdez? THAT was their chance to learn. a very public, very large, very avoidable oil spill that is still causing damage to this day. and what did they learn? they learned they need to spend more money on PR execs, and less on environmental safety. the Gulf disaster will just reinforce that mentality.

[@IRmightynoob]

@Mazhar Imam To be blunt, they are very interested in learning. After all, an oil spill is wasted oil. You make the most money when nothing goes wrong, morality is dead, efficiency is not.

[@stanburton6224]

@@thomasneal9291 they did learn from that. Worldwide single hull tankers are pretty much banned. So precisely what did you expect them to learn? Oil is a necessary resource. You cannot have ANY industrial product without oil. No plastic, no rubber, no medicine, no lubricants, no steel, nothing.

[@ricksflicks-]

They learned that all they have to do is wait 10 years and change their logo green and people will stop caring. If a fine can be easily paid it's just a cost of doing business.

[@dripkidd8572]

The amount of times when the word "Oil" was used, America is about to drill this video

[@krisvalenti4141]

I found it quite crude!

[@Recycled]

@@krisvalenti4141 Ooh, a slick reply!

[@tequilamockingbird758]

British Petroleum.....

[@MrCTruck]

Lol

[@barriolimbas]

No, they gonna claim to find WMD's in this video and invade.

[@ianstradian]

The blow out preventer used in the used in the Gulf of Mexico is smaller and cheaper than the blow out preventer used in the North Atlantic and North Pacific. Why? Because the oil industry went to congress and lobbied to be able to use a smaller cheaper blow out preventer.

[@joshlewis575]

Gotta love our "leaders" n their tremendous foresight. Surely their own financial benefits didn't outweigh their common sense. God this place makes 0 sense.

[@jimtheedcguy4313]

For all the billions they make, it seems like a pretty stupid thing to cheap out on. But yet they did. It kind of makes you think what else are they cheaping out on that'll lead to the next BP spill.

[@davidkilpatrick18]

Care to explain how it was smaller than those used in the North Atlantic and Pacific. As for price after this all BOPS surface and Subsea went up in price due to several reasons including everyone wanting OEM service not cheap chinease copy parts. Also last time I looked the main failures of the BOP was down to poor maintenance which makes size and cost irrelevant and the way the drill pipe sat in the BOP in a way that very few people could forsea. There is a reason Cameron is propably the worlds largest BOP supplier and its definately not due to its cost. Know that on surface a rig can go through several cheap BOPs and choke packages before they would of even equaled the cost of a Cameron one.

[@--enyo--]

Lobbying is a scourge.

[@bradwatson2085]

That particular BOP was irregularly serviced and non OEM parts were used as well because they were cheaper.

[@whoever6458]

Thank you for saying that the crew was priceless! I have a big pet peeve about people talking about how much money a disaster cost and mentioning the loss of irreplaceable human beings as some kind of less-important side note. I always look at it this way: If I lose a dollar and then someone comes along and gives me another dollar, I have as much at the end as I did at the beginning. If I lose someone I love, no amount of other people I love, even new ones, will make up for the loss of the first one. Stuff is just stuff and, yeah, it sucks to lose it and to have to buy another one, but that in no way compares to the loss of a life.

[@79ajvw]

Absolute truth, I loved how that had emotional emphasis

[@chdxt3741]

A : "Boss, the warning lamp is on" B : "Meh.. Now, get back to work boys"

[@leechmiller1072]

Have you ever thought about doing a video about the Giant's Causeway. The geology of it and myths etc that surround it.

[@ressljs]

Naming are risky project after a cursed town doomed to annihilation, and then it blows up in a huge disaster... That sounds too ridiculous to be true.

[@rogerw-interested]

i also find it hard to believe that BP would name the project with such a negative image

[@FoxSullivan]

@@rogerw-interested Considering Garcia Marquez' writings are mostly praised in the spanish speaking circles, I highly doubt whoever made the decision on BP's side were even aware of such. Ironic honestly.

[@mikehurt3290]

What happens to the town in the book?

[@berryberrykixx]

Also to add, in early June, a friend and I were preparing to head south to help clean the animals in LA. On June 5th, we had an unprecedented weather event and basically my entire town was destroyed overnight. We really wanted to go but we were very suddenly faced with our own massive cleanup. 4 EF4 (borderline EF5) tornados are just something we've never, ever seen in this area, Lake Township just outside Toledo, Ohio.

[@QueenCheetah]

13:25- "But at the cost of some /structural/ integrity." Which, unfortunately, was the only kind BP had left.

[@anne-droid7739]

Nicely put. I'm sure they're very comfortable with our current Administration.

[@terryts2]

Not gonna lie. I’ve watched a lot of your videos but this one was possibly the toughest for me. (Yes even tougher than the Black Plague or Stalin’s Death Island) becaus I’ve lived in Florida for a good 25 years and was here for the oil spill. We live outside of Destin Fl (which is like a hidden paradise of a beach town kinda like Panama City’s little brother) and the oil got out here too. A lot of business that rely on marine life lost a lot, beaches were closed, marine life kept washing up. It was depressing, made worse by it happening during peak summer. So the tourism that Destin relied heavily on took a big hit.

[@EricDKaufman]

oh yeah man, those apalachicola bay oyster are full of that shit now since it has had time to work its way up through the food chain (Ph.D. Microbiologist who worked the scene)

[@TrekkieBrie]

Yeah I'm a gulf Florida local too (with an environmental science degree). We got hit really hard (lived in PCB first then pensacola). It's a hard video to watch when you've lived through the fallout and repercussions.

[@rogerw-interested]

again comes the theme, greed and money. you imply the spill only sucked because it affected businesses during peek season. sorry we couldnt sch the spill during the winter for you. sheesh

[@andrewfreiji4647]

​@@TrekkieBrie How is it now though? Has it recovered? Do you go swimming in the Gulf?

[@altariacorona]

​​@@rogerw-interested "made worse", so he was not implying that the tragedy "only" suck because of effect on tourism. Learn to read

[@GainingDespair]

Lived in Mississippi for about 15 years, father worked with a clean up team and that was an absolute joke. One of his (their) jobs was reporting any animal covered in oil (will prevent birds from flying) as well as effecting sea turtles causing them to starve since they couldn't see. He was rather angry with how they handled things, seen many giant sea turtles dead (all around 100 years of age) due to their size and slow growth rate. Never once did anyone come for any animal, he reported them daily ... Every single day not one time did anyone get them. They all basically died due to the oil spill. He really wasn't the overly nature type who hugs trees by any means but countless generations of our family lived off the sea (we are Native Americans) and our tribe is native to Mississippi. More just wanting to keep the place clean for everyone else too come. As many people know oil and water do not mix, since water is more dense oil will float on the surface. The main part of the clean up (majority of time spent cleaning) involved them spray oil with a relatively unknown chemical. This in turn would make the oil more dense causing it to sink below the surface and made the areas appear clean. Very little cleaning was done, mostly just spraying the oil to hide it ... because if you can't see it than obviously it's been removed... We learned a lot about this chemical in the years that followed, apparently it was a chemical BP actually produced themselves and was patented by BP. Instead of cleaning the oil up properly they decided to keep most of the expense inside the company (to avoid cost) by only purchasing stuff they made. The chemical was not very effective since it only hid the oil (it's still there to this day just resting on the bottom of the sea floor). BP spent a lot of money on ads/borderline propaganda stating how BP did so much to help the Gulf after the oil spill ... They did this for years on end non stop, but they never stated it was actually BP behind these commercials and wanted it to come off as just others praising BP instead of BP praising itself. The oil spill really effected the wildlife in the ocean, it killed A LOT of fish and still to this day they have not recovered. Everyone who makes a living off the sea (fishermen, shrimp boats, etc) where all heavily effected by this and still are. BP ran the commercials for PR due to how many tourists visit the Gulf Coast. They wanted to make folks not native to the area believe BP was preforming miracles .... not even remotely true. Sad thing is, a lot of the folks who worked with my father on the clean up have died in the past 10 years ... basically all from cancer. A lot of people have died from cancer from the chemicals used during the clean up. Not a little, not some, a large majority of the clean up teams have passed due to cancer. The cancer rate for the Gulf Coast has skyrocketed far above the national average. The chemical used has made a lot of fish not safe to eat. Seafood has always been a large export from states on the Gulf Coast, the oil spill has effected everyone still to this day. Even my father, he was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer two years ago. They gave him 7 months to live.

[@spritemon98]

Good god.. That's terrible

[@katdaddy469]

Sad sad world we've created from stupid and greed. Sometimes I wish something would take us all away. We don't deserve the pure paradise the earth once was

[@GaryR55]

Bet they went through a lot of bottles of Dawn, eh?

[@jamescole8049]

I love on the gulf in Alabama and this devastated everything. We were finding oil for years. And I did the non destructive testing on the BOP that caused the whole thing. It was completely preventable.

[@gordonlawrence1448]

How the hell do you do a test on a BOP non-destructively? The ones I used, have a small explosive charge that forces a wedge into a 1 inch thick steel tube to bend it shut,

[@johnuferbach9166]

@@gordonlawrence1448 what's a bop?

[@chrisrobinson2410]

@@johnuferbach9166 blow out prevent(er) or (ion)

[@multiyapples]

Tragic. Rest in peace to those that passed away.

[@SpiralCee]

Simon is such a good narrator. He even makes the commercials sound interesting!

[@TrekkieBrie]

Hello from someone living in an area that still to this day is seeing impacts from the deepwater horizon spill...

[@Zeldahol]

Fuck, that must suck. I'm Canadian and I have winter but I couldn't imagine that shit in my back yard. I'd rather shovel a shit load of snow than have to clean up some greedy bastards oil.

[@TheMr77469]

@@Zeldahol Well if you live in Alberta , you have the Oil Sands.

[@Zeldahol]

Ontario.

[@tobyace]

I lived in Houston at the time of this incident, and yet I still learned a thing or two from this video! Kudos to you, Simon, for your spot-on delivery of the most appropriate tone and making it watchable while being informative. Also, well done to the writers (if they are different)!!

[@hardgay7537]

This is the first time I've ever heard it called "Deepwater Horizon". Us Floridians refuse to call it anything other than "The BP Oil Spill". BP doesn't get the most business around here anymore.

[@TheLacedaemonian300]

Deep Water Horizon needed Daniel Day Lewis. He's the best oil-man bad guy ever.

[@MidwestDankAlumni]

Um, Bruce Willis is.

[@PhuckedUpPhilosophy]

@@MidwestDankAlumni daniel plainview wants a word with your milkshake

[@mitchellneu]

"I see the worst in people, Henry...I don't need to look past seeing them to get all I need...."

[@mikdavies5027]

'For the sake of a nail, a shoe was lost'!

[@igostupidfast3]

"Because a shoe was lost a horse was lost"?

[@lopilkderlll]

Learned about this tragedy through the film starring Mark Wahlberg of the same name. It was one of the first films to truly effect me emotionally. I can’t even imagine what being on that rig was like when the blowout occurred. Literally hell on Earth.

[@Blaghhhhhhhhhhhh]

Piper Alpha would be a good one to cover (if not already done so).

[@NNICKKK]

Scrolled to find this comment, I’m from Aberdeen in Scotland and this would indeed make a sobering and compelling episode.

[@gordonlawrence1448]

This was a bit of a "Titanic" situation from a fault tree analysis perspective (I have done both). Specifically both needed a long list of problems to coincide to be as bad as they were. EG if the metalwork had been up to spec (in both cases) the situation would not have been as bad. If procedures had been followed in both cases (EG the Titanic lookout forcing the lock on the binoculars case) then the situation could have been better if not avoided. There is a huge list of things like that in both cases.

[@lordofchaos5378]

In case if the titanic you may or may not be right as it is not certain that the iceberg would be seen eerlier with bino's and really any ship would have sunk on collision because the force was equal to multiple torpedo hits

[@jfbeam]

Actually, it's a _very_ short list in both cases. BP did _everything_ wrong they remotely could.

[@conors4430]

Gordon Lawrence and both those points about the Titanic have been debunked. I take what you mean but those specific issues need context. The ship didn’t have any more or less weak iron in it than any other at the time, its hull was never supposed to withstand a collision with an iceberg, it’s compartments were meant to withstand a sinking event long enough to allow passengers to be saved. It was also assumed that anything big enough to sync the ship would be seen in time for it to move. The breaking of the ship was definitely not metal based because absolutely no ship on earth is designed even now to withstand those kind of forces on it. Plus the binoculars were only ever used in very specific circumstances, at the time it was widely understood and accepted that Naked vision was best for the majority of observation, binoculars were only meant to double check something. Would have made absolutely no difference. The only thing that would’ve made a difference in the Titanic’s case was better regulations for the wireless operators of all ships at sea and regulations for lifeboat capacity

[@gordonlawrence1448]

@Agent J Well the senior leadership at that point was American.

[@gordonlawrence1448]

@Agent J You also seem to be forgetting it was a US company that made the BOP and certificated it even though it was not up to spec. And no you cant test them as they are a one time use device. IE after use they cannot be used again.

[@rejvaik00]

Today I learned that theres such a thing as "documentary porn"

[@NickCamokidVisneski]

And that there are likely people who get off to it

[@vejet]

@@NickCamokidVisneski Disgusting.

[@NickCamokidVisneski]

@@vejet no kink shaming

[@dennymambo]

One more like and this comment has 69. Just saying.

[@dommie18]

@@dennymambo you’re welcome

[@johnstevenson9956]

BP still has gas stations over here and I can't for the life of me, figure out how they survive. I never see one without thinking about it.

[@johnharris6655]

Interesting side note, in the movie "Deepwater Horizon" Graham McGinnis, who plays the Coast Guard Lieutenant, is an actual active duty Coast Guard Helicopter Rescue Swimmer who was stationed at USCG Airstation New Orleans when the movie was made. Petty Officer McGinnis was award the Distinguished Flying Cross in 2020 for heroism rescuing trapped forest service workers during a forest fire in California.

[@joeyount6065]

"Company cut corners" How to tell when any disaster by a corporation is going to happen

[@vismaytiwari2954]

Please start a series about major events , such as afgan war

[@lolbored801]

I would definitely like to say that.

[@johndoe9947]

I would love that. I spent 2.5 years there and you love to hear a modern hindsight twist on it.

[@officerbutton9532]

Oo yes, please do this!

[@baronvonjo1929]

I know nothing about it lol

[@aprilmott5880]

I don't normally like "based on a true event" movies but i thought Deepwater Horizon was very well done and very interesting. I feel so sorry for the people who were on it when it blew

[@ronpatriot6679]

I was offshore in the Gulf, about 35 miles away from Deepwater Horizon when it blew. I was also part of the many crews tasked with skimming oil from the spill. What a stinking mess!

[@Zanathal]

Simon you helping so much through this time, thank you for everyone on all your teams for keeping my brain learning

[@musicaltheatregeek20]

Watching The Newsroom episode actually made me interested in learning way more about it

[@thelittlemerman3020]

reminds me of Moria, "Moria. You fear to go into those mines. The Dwarves dug too greedily and too deep. You know what they awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dûm...

[@killernat1234]

I still can’t believe that the people from BP walked away without any serious punishment, because of their choices and greed people died, they should have been charged with first degree manslaughter without parole at least

[@martins.4240]

In a case like this all the top executives and the board of directors should get an automatic 20 years jail time without possibility of parole. Oh, and confiscation of all of their assets as well, of course. Then maybe others would think twice about doing the same in the future. Or does being tough on crime only apply to poor people? I think we all know the answer to that...

[@walmartskills]

One among many things I love about your videos is that you do a prehistory leading to the event in question, really appreciate that!

[@Lrr_Of_Omikron]

Anyone remember the south park episode about deep water horizon? "Were sorry"

[@zachaliles]

You mean the exact episode he mentioned in the video you commented on? No. Never heard of it.

[@Anon-cp6bm]

Ah yes, this story reminds me of when i blew up the Enclave oil rig some many, many years ago...

[@michaeletzel4877]

"In total the well had a measured depth of 35,055 feet. If you started a 10k race through the earth you would finish the race before you reached the bottom of the well." The drama is strong with this one. 35,055 feet is indeed longer than 10km.

[@aaronsumner853]

And ever since this happened, I have never purchased gas from a BP gas station

[@xenos_n.]

Thanks for the music to let me know when to fast forward through the ad, Simon 👍

[@p.c.windhamparanormalroman4339]

4:20 that is not an oil rig, that is a pump jack.

[@magnumcipher4971]

P.C. Windham Paranormal/Romance/Sci-fi/Fantasy I literally said the exact same thing out loud! 🤣

[@AxcelleratorT]

I've always liked the term "Prairie Pecker" But yes, you are correct about it being a pump jack.

[@tommcglone2867]

This side of the pond in Britain we had a similar disaster in the 1980s in the North Sea. Piper-Alpha which was a modular rig drilling for both oil and natural gas. The explosions and the enormous fire killed 167. By the time the fire had burned itself out only one of the module blocks remained standing, and it was a blackened, charred hulk.

[@agentcoxack7368]

Rig: “WARNING: IMMEDIATE EXPLOSION RISK.” Workers in a rush: “Hasn’t exploded yet hey let’s cut more corners.”

[@olalustig5397]

Is this the same that spilled oil and south park made fun of?"We sorry" "We soooorry" and summoned cthulu *Edit* Hahahaha there it is xD

[@trapjaw86]

Certainly is bud

[@HUN73RK1LL3R]

I thought the “we sorry” episode was about global warming?

[@tylerwerner291]

@@HUN73RK1LL3R I think a gigantic oil spill and climate change have something to do with one another there guy.

[@cavemanlovesmoke4394]

@@tylerwerner291 dont call me guy, buddy!

[@skipfred]

@@cavemanlovesmoke4394 I'm not your buddy, pal!

[@joeyvanostrand3655]

If the crew and the rig were actually priceless, I highly doubt the sort of thing would have happened.

[@joeyvanostrand3655]

@Agent J your feelings and opinions are meaningless.

[@alexg3348]

RIP to those rig workers lost at sea. 😥

[@bradgillette9253]

Chase Kiddy: excellent writing! Intelligent Poetry is the thang.

[@chasekiddy8864]

thanks, brad!

[@alexandersnow2782]

"the caustic greed that reigns chaos on innocent bystanders" This. This verbage keeps me coming back as much as his sultry voice.

[@zebrastrong9291]

My hometown is an “oil town.” Most men go to work offshore as it’s the only job that pays well enough to support a family. (Or it did prior to the collapse alongside Covid.) My husband worked on the Thunderhorse until Covid and Valaris declared bankruptcy. My husband’s brother was one of the men that survived the Horizon. He received about $2mil as compensation, and is flat broke today. We lost a few family friends on the Horizon as well. Oilfield families form their own culture. And we ALL agree the movie was pure shit!

[@vejet]

Are you serious? Ok, My sympathy's do go out to him for surviving that hell but how in the heck did he blow through 2 million in cash that fast?! I swear y'all don't know how to save for the future down there in the south.

[@RobSchofield]

Another excellent, well-written piece. I am beginning to think this is Simon's best channel! Keep it up.

[@ericlondon5731]

This is the most concise well-presented version I have heard. Thanks for doing it !

[@Zakster90]

Still the most disgusting corporate greed “accident” I can think of... It’s just sickening, that nobody went to jail, they were just fined... as if a fine will fix the greed from continuing on.

[@martins.4240]

I wonder how big that BP execs golden parachute was. 20 million? 30 million? 40 million? That'll obviously teach him not to do that kind of thing again!

[@hetalianotaku7103]

It was still in the tens of billions in addition to the fines they'd already paid, which were also in the billions. Hardly just a slap on the wrist.

[@Heyiya-if]

Fines = ‘legal if you’re rich’.

[@rogerw-interested]

of which prolly insurance paid most of the fines and the whole thing is considered 'the cost of doing business'

[@Urmum3469]

Can you do a video on lake George. It's in New York and was carved out by a glacier. A lot of native American history is there, the French and Indian war and revolutionary war were both around the lake and the lake was used. I'm sure you could do another great video on this lake.

[@FelineSublime]

I remember my class and I following this as it happened while at my senior geology field camp in West Texas and New Mexico. Most of my classmates were roughnecks, and this hit very close to home for them.

[@austy_whasty7941]

Yeah I feel that.I live on earth so this really hit very close to home

[@salmanpaul5672]

Your videos are very informative and articulate. Thanks & keep up the good work. God bless.

[@CyanOgilvie]

When will the world learn: NEVER IGNORE ENGINEERS!

[@TWhite94]

Cyan Ogilvie when politics are put above science and truth is called a lie because it’s not popular then people die. Challenger... Columbia...Deepwater Horizon.

[@Calum_S]

It's not as simple as that; practically every engineering disaster will have a load of engineers underestimating the risks involved.

[@gordonlawrence1448]

@@Calum_S Not as many as you'd think. I used to do fault tree analysis for a living and every time it was a long list of factors and almost never was it an engineering issue. In fact I cant remember even one but it's a while back.

[@mitchellneu]

I remember Tony Hayward in South Park.... "We're soooorryyyy"....

[@React2Quick]

"Soooorrrryyy...."

[@22vx]

Excellent, as usual 👍 Thank you!

[@suspectsikka1198]

Was hoping you would cover this at some point. Love your videos. 🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻

[@bruns.like.spoons9251]

Excellent choice for a location. Well done!

[@SiVlog1989]

This incident, coupled with mismanagement of their Texas City refinery (where they lived in denial about the chequered safety record of the plant), lead to me deciding to boycott BP from then onwards

[@mordokch]

How ?

[@dsnodgrass4843]

Same. 10 years, still won't buy gas from them.

[@billylangley1462]

Simon, this is your calling. You are great at this stuff. The perfect host as well as an awesome speaker. Kerp up the good work! These are very informative. I love history myself and I like the way you call b.s. on the fictitious tales of things and break out the truth. The sarcasm is perfect too. Have you ever considered being a voice over for shows?

[@SwissplWatches]

Great video! Love your presentation style.

[@fotomatanda1505]

The most accurate title to a youtube video I've ever seen.

[@sashakazmar6142]

I can’t believe it’s been 10 years already 😢

[@stevenjohnarmitage4345]

10 years to the day ... Glad found this. Great work and a good tribute to the real story.

[@DeliveryMcGee]

I was in a newsroom in the inland East Texas oilfield when it happened, it was indeed wild, with the editors and reporters trying to figure out which way to spin it -- accident, negligence, or environmental disaster. I think we ended up going through all three, in that order. I'd like to see more videos on oil rig disasters, like Piper Alpha, which was caused by an even more egregious screwup. Deepwater Horizon had a kick and a failed blowout preventer, and burned for a day and a half, Piper Alpha had a failure of lockout/tagout procedures during maintenance and burned for THREE WEEKS. And then there's the Byford Dolphin decompression chamber accident, which ... is one of those Simon will have to take a break in the middle of because it's so bad. Also land oil rig non-disasters would make good episodes, like Spindletop and Daisy Bradford #3 (or Dad Joiner for the Biographics channel) for happier endings.

[@arielrichmond1238]

"If you poke a hole in the bottom of the world without proper precautions "...😅🤣😅😂🤣

[@Hassy171717]

"Few things are more American than dramatizing a tragedy after enough years have passed..." is what had me rolling!

[@Psiballl]

I remember seeing this on the news and my 11 year old brain thinking "oil go big boom".

[@jeffbrooks5580]

Yeah I was a little older and living in Florida my second thought was can I still go to beach

[@MidwestDankAlumni]

I was almost 23

[@ratintimbs4553]

NOOOO you can't just dig thousands of feet into the ground ignoring safety concerns !!! hahah oil drill go burrr

[@TheRealToadfishRebecchi]

You weren’t wrong.

[@mistersalem9261]

Superb Video Simon!

[@joshuajones1574]

I’ve watched as many of your videos as I can and that is one of the all time greats. Imagine just 1, ONE, person who worked there putting his/her foot down and risk getting fired to prevent all that devastation. Ever think that it’s already happened to you in the past and you succeed. I like to think so. 💪🏽

[@militarymist1199]

"The greatest teacher, failure is." - Yoda.

[@LexieLPoyser]

I was 14 when this happened. My science teacher went on a tirade about water pollution that day.

[@TheSeptemberSapphire]

I live near Louisiana and was in school at the time. There was a live feed where you would watch the oil coming from the sea floor that my science teacher would put up. Definitely helped make her point about renewable energy.

[@Wewishwewerepros]

Wicked video, my dad was a Subsea super intendant for the Transocean in charge of the Blow out prevention valve (on a different rig) during in this event and I couldn’t fault a single bit of information. Great job

[@TheJacyn313]

I totally forgot about deep water, the gulf was covered in a unbelievably large film of oil for a long time.

[@emmiewhite4633]

There’s an a film about this on Netflix. Would recommend people to watch it

[@williammathews526]

I just stumbled upon Geographics and I am loving it.

[@NevinRiley]

I have been enjoying your narrative voice so much! Would love to see your take and a deep dive on the Bhopal tragedy.

[@capellozapellini6074]

I actually enjoyed the movie for this tragedy, it wasn’t the best thing in the world but it did go to show how this all happened due to neglect and greed

[@notsteve1475]

Nothing has changed in the 1%rs world. WE ARE ALL EXPENDABLE TO THEM!!

[@IRmightynoob]

I hope that wasn't a sudden realization.

[@Recon3Y3z]

Excellent choice! Glad you did this one.

[@ki5rllthreedronefour85]

He covers several points I have not read in research and not in the movie (movie not a resource I know) and discusses some important points about its 10-yr life making them so much money. It was an incredible city in operation. With incredible consequences for any failures.