H.I.M Mr. Ola 🦧- 🦍- (OG)

The Piper Alpha is oil & gas industry’s deadliest accident in history. Happened in the North Sea (oil-rich waters shared by UK, Germany, Norway, Denmark, Netherlands) in 1988. The Piper Alpha is a specific oil platform 120km offshore Aberdeen, the oil capital of Europe. The platform was originally for oil, and gas from the field were flared. They later decided to modify the facility to accommodate gas utilization with some pipelines. On the afternoon of 6 July 1988, the engineer on duty in charge of one of the pumps observed some issue in a valve and made a comment that pump should not be switched on for any reason. Unfortunately, while ending his shift for that day, he forgot to pass the info to the supervisor who issued permit to the engineer on night duty to switch on the pump when there was an issue with another pump. Explosion occurred. As there was a gas facility within the platform, it got worse, fire traveled fast. The rest is history. 226 people were on the offshore platform. 165 died, from engineers to caterers (offshore rig is usually like a community with all manner of workers - compare with a construction site, but inside water). 2 people from the rescue team also died, bringing total fatality to 167. 30 bodies were never recovered. It took 3 weeks to finally put out the fire. Sad day for Aberdeen and the global oil & gas community. So when you see oil & gas technical guys (especially those that go offshore) getting paid a lot of money, this is the risk and hazard that could come with their job.