My name said Ed Punchard and I was on the Piper Alpha platform
when it blew up on July 6 1988. I was the diving coordinator and
I shared an office with the diving superintendent.
I was working in my office which was immediately above the dive
skid on the lower level of the platform.
We find ourselves in an office which was largely smashed.
All the filing cabinets had fallen over and the ceiling
and come in. The lights were out, there was a little bit
of light trickling in from a corridor. I helped the diving
superintendent into a breathing set and he said to me,
“Go and find a way out of here”. He went down to the dive skid to
see what was going on there. There was in fact a diver in the
water who had to be recovered. I made my way up towards the
control room. All the routes up to the other parts of the
platform were blocked by smoke. By the time I made my way back
down again, the diver had been recovered and the dive team
gathered on the one corner of the platform that was free of
smoke. There would have been about 20 of us. We kind
of wondered for a few moments what to do. I noticed that there
was a ladder that went down onto a school platform
and when I went down the ladder I could see underneath.
At the other side where all the wellheads were,
there was an enormous fire and a fire around the wellheads.
It is an extremely dangerous thing.
I called up and I said we've just got to get off and there
was in fact a rope adjacent to where we were standing.
I climbed down what must have been 80 feet and I reached out
with my toe to try and grab the corner of the spider deck so
that I could walk along the gangway there and all
the people who on that corner climbed down the rope and by
that time the standby vessel the Silver Pit had come close by
and they launched a fast rescue craft. A rib, rigid inflatable.
We climb down a small ladder the 10 foot or so and got picked
up by the rib.
In the aftermath of Piper I like many
of the survivors suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder.
I think especially for somebody who was a diver, you know
somebody who might regard oneself as being pretty
resilient. That sort of thinking takes you by surprise.
But now when I look back at it of course I can see
that it was completely unsurprising thing to have
occurred. None of us were trained to go
into what effectively was a combat zone where
you were surrounded by explosions and had to deal
with you know quite a significant escape
that was coordinated by just ordinary workers and then have
several hours involved in a rescue operation.
That was again largely coordinated by survivors.
None of us were really trained for that. So the aftermath I
don't think was surprising. I think on a corporate level,
it's essential to have a safety culture and appropriate safety
regime be honoured respected and required from the very
highest level of management. Now my own personal opinion of
the oil company involved is such that I would say that didn't
exist. I think it was absent. In fact I think it's fair
to quote one of the assessors at the inquiry who said
that with most incidents like this you find a link missing
from a chain and he actually said in this case the chain was
missing. It was that serious on a corporate level.
Piper Alpha was the tipping point. I think it was the moment
in which modern systems of industrial health and safety
were instigated in a new way. In a way which requires
individuals and corporations to be much more self motivated
and self proving. And I think you can look back now after 30
years and say this is the moment that it all changed.
I think conducting regular safety audits of some form
is an essential thing in any industry and clearly
with the systems and hazards involved with avaition has an
obvious relevance. There is something very important to
remember. about regulations. It's almost as if too many
regulations can take away the capacity to deliver a good
result. I describe it as the difference between
traffic lights and roundabouts. Roundabouts require a certain
skill level. They require a certain level of attention.
Traffic lights don't and there's a danger in having a reliance
on traffic lights and there's an important vitality,
skill and self-motivation around safe working practices.
It's a simple thing to remember you know traffic lights
and roundabouts and I'd encourage anybody who works in
an environment where safety is vital to keep thinking about
that. Dont instruct your workers in such a way that they zone
out. That they stop thinking. It's really important to find a
way to keep people engaged,
skilled and motivated.