Quote:It's also worth mentioning that what happened with the Deepwater Horizon was a Blowout, an uncontrolled release of crude oil/methane gas, a freak accident that claimed 11 lives.
An accident? Really? It's already being argued that it was an accident which should not have happened. Corporate safety measures tend to be determined by legal requirements,even when the law is patently inadequate and/or can be circumvented.
I don't know the above for a fact in this case, I'm not an engineer. But as far as I'm concerned I wouldn't trust BP as far as I could throw it. If you think I'm being paranoid,look up the history of BP and other oil companies in the Middle East.
One of our biggest companies, BHP Billiton,has an appalling safety record,being criticised by the courts for being 'accident driven'.Eg Infamously,it installed safety rails in its steel works only after a worker fell into a vat of molten steel,and the company faced massive compensation payouts.
My favourite is the case of life boats on the Titanic:
Quote:RMS Titanic carried only 20 lifeboats, infamously only enough lifeboats for about half the people on board. Ironically, she actually carried more boats than were required under British Board of Trade regulations in force in 1912. Part of the naive reasoning of the period was that with the advent of radio (wireless)---
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_lifeb...he_Titanic
An accident in the Gulf of Mexico? Depends entirely on how you define the word.
