Here’s the video:
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What do you think? Press going overboard or a real case of corporate manslaughter?
Category: Accidents, Current Events, Investigations, Video
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For some reason….corporate leaders commit manslaughter and always get away with it because they are never incarcerated. Is the victim of a serial killer more dead than the 11 victims of the Deepwater Horizon?
Fact is that its easy to go after the serial killer and punish him! Its darn hard to wade through the protective, obstructive, time consuming lawyers to hold a corporate murderer accountable. Especially when you bite the hand that feeds you in order to proceed. And its absolutely impossible to prosecute corporate thugs when your boss is as unprincipalled as the thug you are focussed on. In the end the wealthy keep their freedom and the poor get capital punishment.
The result…corporate murderers remain aggressive, smug and comfortable with their huge salaries and bonuses, knowing they and their families will always be looked up to by a blind society.
Comment by Doug from Canada — May 27, 2010 @ 1:17 pm
Isn’t it true that ameraican media is hounding BP as it is a foreign company. An american company involved in similar distater would have been treated differently as finally american interest would have been hurt. BP can be flogged because somebody else would be footing the bill. Will American government, Public or media would put equal pressure on union carbide to compensate for loss of human life and ecological damages for disaster in BHOPAL India, the effects of which are still being felt. I bet not as sharholders are after all americans.
BP can be Milked to the lost drop as it is a foreign company .
Comment by S.BODHANKAR — June 22, 2010 @ 5:22 am
While BP’s headquarters is in the UK, I recall hearing that a significant portion of BP shares are owned by US citizens. This should not be too surprising since BP issued shares to buy Sohio, Amoco and ARCO – three former “US” oil companies. So the fact that BP’s headquarters is in the UK doesn’t mean that “foreigners” will be footing the bill. Ultimately it’s the shareholders that foot the bill – regardless of where they live.
By the same token, not all Union Carbide shareholders are US citizens. UC stock is open for ownership by whomever wishes to purchase it.
Comment by Eric S. — June 22, 2010 @ 6:08 am
Here in the UK, the last Government introduced a whole raft of rules regarding corporate manslaughter, but what they didn’t introduce was any provision for full and fair investigation of whatever might have caused an accident in the first place.
Fault and blame are the two watchwords of our Legal and Parliamentry system and nobody in authority really cares about what happened and how. They do care about who can be blamed and the sooner someone can be blamed, the better. Corporate manslaughter charges are an indication that the investigation process has gone just far enough to find someone of sufficient seniority to blame, charge and imprison.
It seems that this disaster was made all the worse for the environment by the blow out preventer being powered and controlled from the rig on the surface. This would be perfectly OK, were it not for the fact that the rig exploded, before the blow out preventer could be operated.
As every deep sea rig has a blow out preventer, use of which is mandated by the Government. Why was it that this simple failure mode of failing dangerous rather than failing safe was not identified years ago?
The brakes on railway carriages are held off by the pressure in the lines being generated by the engine. If the engine fails, the brakes go on, so whay was this simple idea not used in the blow out preventer?
Will some poor middle ranking executive from BP spend the next few years in prison, because of this particular failure mode? Fault and Blame says that the initial explosion was probably caused by some weak administrative system, or cornewr cutting for which this poor person was responsible, but the real and continuing disaster happened in the blow out preventer.
Comment by Duncan MacKillop — June 22, 2010 @ 6:56 am
Duncan – You are correct that we are embroiled in a culture of blame and fault, which are both useless and counter-productive toward true understanding of what happened and what we as a culture can learn. This is very sad to those of us still working in the energy industry and wanting to understand what can be learned to make our entire industry safer.
Your comments on “failing dangerous” are definitely on an important track of where the investigation should probe. My limited understanding from reading press articles and watching the news is that the blowout preventer was equipped with something like this, where a battery-operated motor was supposed to close the valve if contact with the rig is lost. Except that the reports I read said that the battery was dead. So it is possible that the failure to replace a ~$100 dead battery could have been a significant contributor to the eventual disaster?
The public investigation and criminal probes will focus on the risks and shortcuts taken by BP and/or Transocean and/or whoever else. I would agree that it is important to understand these issues. Maybe the drilling job was rushed and corners were cut due to the very high profit potential from this prospect. But a dead battery? The complete story will likely expose practices and lack of attention to detail that we all can learn from and improve. Will the inquiry go to this deep of a level – where it becomes tougher to find fault and blame?
I agree with your assessment above that the investigation will stop once fault and blame can be established. Only I believe this is true not because of our legal and parlimentary system alone – the reason for this is due to all of us as a culture. It is tough to ask the question “what is it about the way we are as a culture, or I am as an individual, that contributes to these types of failure?” Nobody wants to consider that maybe we all play a role in this type of failure. Things we all do every day and find to be “acceptable behaviors” are probably not much different than things that BP and the drilling rig team were doing that led up to this failure. My own testimony is that as a culture we find it acceptable to take shortcuts and not following best practices, but we get away with it “most of the time”. Is it okay to act this way if the potential consequences are small – or uncertain? Or are there lessons within this Gulf of Mexico disaster that we all can learn from? But do we want to learn – or would we rather just find fault and blame – and pretend that we are not a part of the problem?
One final note along these lines is in regards to the Exxon Valdez. This investigation resulted in very harsh fault and blame to Exxon and an negligent tanker captain. But at least one other ship has run aground on the same reef since the Valdez event – so did that Valdez investigation really get to the underlying causes to prevent a recurrence? That investigation found someone to blame…
Comment by Art — June 22, 2010 @ 9:49 am
In reply to S.BODHANKAR
BP is 40% American owned.
I think any company – American owned or not – would be getting the same level of grief for “causing” the accident in the Gulf. For example, Exxon got lots of grief over the Exxon Valdez accident.
However, Americans don’t pay much attention to things that happen outside America. Our press hardly even reports on foreign accidents. Therefore, don’t be surprised if you don’t see an outcry from America over an accident that happens somewhere else in the world (India included). Americans just aren’t paying attention.
Comment by Mark Paradies — June 22, 2010 @ 10:54 am
Mark – not sure if you are aware of the law that is in effect in Canada that was called Bill C-45? Have a look at the website below and see what is in place in Canada around criminal charges to individuals in organizations. The Bill did pass through our government and is effect here. Maybe the U.S. should consider something similar? It can be done, and people held accountable when those working for them lose their lives on the job due to negligence. Why not hold the people in charge accountable for the way their business is being run? It is an absolute tragedy that so many people lost their lives in the Gulf incident, and now scores of other innocent people and animals also have to suffer. The massive environmental damage will haunt us all for many years to come, but let’s not forget that 11 people lost their lives, many more were injured, families are devastated, and countless people are now suffering from the after-effects. Being a safety professional in the oil and gas industry myself, I don’t believe in pointing fingers and laying blame. We use the saying here “Fact finding, not Fault finding.” Let’s find the root causes to this horrific incident and get them corrected before anyone else dies. And, using the word “accident” implies nothing could have been done to prevent the event – I’m positive that is not the case.
Criminal? Yes. Accountability – absolutely!
http://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/legisl/billc45.html
Comment by Lorraine — June 22, 2010 @ 6:55 pm