E078_Speaking Up for Safety: Insights from a Survivor of Piper Alpha

In this episode, our guest, Joe Meanen, shares his powerful and harrowing story of survival from the 1988 Piper Alpha disaster, one of the deadliest industrial accidents in history.

Joe takes us through that fateful night, recounting the chaos, the critical failures that led to the tragedy, and his courageous escape into the North Sea.

His vivid testimony reveals the human cost of systemic safety failures and is a stark reminder of the importance of vigilance, leadership, and communication in high-risk industries.

Joe’s reflections not only honour the lives lost but also highlight lessons that remain vital for organisations striving to create a stronger safety culture today.

Reach out to Joe via LinkedIn.

Thanks for listening!

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This episode was produced under Safety Collaborations Limited and now continues as part of Karin Ovari Limited. While we are not currently releasing new episodes, the entire library remains active, and the topics covered are just as relevant today as when they were first recorded.

To learn more about my current work in leadership and communication, visit karinovari.com and the leadership community, The Supervisors Hub.

Connect with us on LinkedIn:  Karin Ovari, Nuala Gage,

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 Stay Safe, Stay Well
The Safety Collaborators

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:08

Welcome to In Conversation with the Safety Collaborators. I am Karen.

Speaker 1 0:14

And I am Nuala, Whether you're a safety professional, a leader or an individual committed to making a difference we invite you to join the discussion on creating a culture of safety and care, enabling your team and leaders to design a safer and more productive and collaborative world. What are the consequences of just getting on with it, even when your instinct is telling you otherwise? Today, we are joined by Joe, who will share his extraordinary story of survival and resilience. Joe Manon is one of the 61 survivors and individuals who made it out of the Piper Alpha disaster alive back in 1988.

Speaker 1 1:00

I will let Joe share the rest of that story, but here is a snippet of something that I found in the Scotsman, which was published on the 5th of July 2018. Joe Mianen was out of options. As he looked over the side of the Piper Alpha into the North Sea, a second explosion had just ripped through the doomed platform, a giant fireball now on the move. For those who are unfamiliar about the Piper Alpha tragedy, it was a pivotal moment in offshore safety history and Joe's experiences that he will share with us today and insights will remind us of the stakes involved in high-risk industry, and we're honoured to have him here to share his story and his journey and the lessons he carried with him.

Speaker 2 1:47

Joe, it is an absolute pleasure to have you join us today and we are so grateful that you could spend the time with us, and that question that Karen posed, which I think you have posed in the past, is actually where we're going to open this up. So what are the consequences of just getting on with it, even when our instinct is telling us otherwise?

Speaker 3 2:08

Yeah, unfortunately, uh, no, the the consequences can be horrific. And, yeah, without possibly speaking up although back in that time in the North Sea oil industry we were, I would say, discouraged from speaking up. But if you spoke up too much and became a nuisance and pain in the management's backside, then they would find some kind of easy way to get rid of you, and normally that would have been what they called is not required back. That was the term they used for the people that they didn't think they got on with or they were causing too much problems offshore, mostly people that were quite unionized guys it was mostly guys that worked offshore back in that days and on paper it was mostly guys that worked offshore back in that days and on paper it was 100% men. Yeah, if you caused too much problems, they just found NRB that was the short of it not required back, and they would just find an easy way to dismiss you All right.

Speaker 2 3:20

That's quite a scary reality because when we think about how we are trying to help people speak up now and how we're trying to encourage that people are included and able to learn in these environments, when you're in an environment where you're going, I can feel that something's not quite right. But I don't want that NRB, so I'm going to just keep quiet, I'll get on with it. I'll do whatever is asked of me and comply with what the expectation is. It must be quite a difficult but also, in many ways, quite a terrifying environment to work with and then ending up with the experience that you had and that just shows the reality of what happens when we are not in a culture of being able to actually speak up for our safety yeah, yeah, absolutely yeah.

Speaker 3 4:09

Uh, you know, hindsight's a great, great thing to have. Yeah, we, possibly we should have spoke up, especially that final trip on Piper, up until and I only started on the Piper Alpha platform in March of 1988. So by the time July came around, that was my fifth trip on Piper and up until the fifth trip things were pretty much as normal as they were on other platforms I'd worked on. I'd worked on a number of platforms offshore for different operators and some were more safety conscious than others. Sometimes it even came down to who what OIM was on the platform over your trip, your two week trip, and the safety officers, how really conscious they were and how much they could influence what was going on, what I mean by from above. They were allowed to do as much as they could that they wouldn't upset the senior management and affect the actual production on the platform too much, if that makes sense. But yeah, yeah, like I say, piper was pretty much the same as other platforms right up until that fifth trip.

Speaker 3 5:34

I was on the platform 12 days before the 6th of july. I only had one more shift to work on 7th of July and I would have been flying home on the 8th of July. So, yeah, we just kind of had to suck it up and get on with it. Really, you know, if you caused too much problems you wouldn't get your job back again. And back in that day jobs were quite scarce to come by in the offshore oil industry. And if you got blacklisted it wasn't just from one platform, it could have been from a number of platforms, just depending on how much of a pain in the backside you would be to the senior management.

Speaker 2 6:19

And that I think is still relevant today, is that sense of I don't want to be a pain in the backside. Live in today is that sense of I don't want to be a pain in the backside and that fear of speaking up and actually, just before we came on this call, I was on an hour session around. How do you deal with fear? How do you deal with facing the things that can actually get in your way of whether it's success or being safe and really dealing with that? But I can't even begin to imagine what it was that you experienced, and I know that there will be many people listening to this podcast who are quite a fae and they know what the story is behind this, but there'll be a large portion of our audience who actually don't know what happened. So could you share a little bit about what was it that actually happened, if you're okay and comfortable going into that?

Speaker 3 7:10

Yes, absolutely yeah. I can share my experience of what happened with myself and some of my colleagues my work colleagues I was with that night. I'll go ahead and do that. But there's people that were on Piper or people that survived from Piper. There was 61 survivors and everybody's got a little bit different recollection of what happened on that night and a little bit of different experiences because they were in different parts of the platform. Some people were working that night and yeah, so they were already outside. But I'll take you through my experience, and obviously it was my experience, and some of my close colleagues I was with shared a similar experience, but they do also recall little bits of the experience differently from what I have done. You know, as we've spoke about over the years.

Speaker 3 8:07

But on the 6th of July it was a Wednesday. Like I said, I was coming to the end of my two weeks offshore. I worked two weeks on, two weeks off and I had one more shift to work on the Thursday and we'd be flying home on a Friday morning. So we we worked a 15-hour day. On Wednesday, the 6th of July, I was sharing a cabin with three other scaffolders. That was my job on the platform a scaffolder and two of the guys I worked directly with who were sharing a cabin with the other guy, billy. He was working with two other colleagues. As the day went on we knew that there was the cinema was going to be showing a movie called caddyshack that night. It was a comedy. The two guys I worked with and billy, we decided early on we were going to go and watch that movie that night. And as the day went on we seen the other guys that worked with us and some of the other guys in the t-shirt and such like that worked on the maintenance contract, and let them know what we were doing that night and we were going to go up, go and watch the movie.

Speaker 3 9:15

Just, it started just after nine o'clock, so let's say we'd been working a 15 hour shift. So just before, just about 10 to 9, one of the guys that was working with me, davey. I said, right, davey, you get away, get a quick shower. Because it was a four-man cabin. We only had one bathroom shower in the four-man cabin, so Davey went away quickly and got and got a quick two minute shower. Then just about five to nine, I says, right, mate, you get away. He went away. Same again. Then, just before nine o'clock myself, I went away to get a quick shower Two-minute shower got changed into my comfortable clothes, I put on a pair of tracksuit bottoms and just a polo shirt and headed along to the cinema, which was through one of the internal corridors in the accommodation module, and you just had to go outside for a couple of steps.

Speaker 3 10:11

It would take you inside to the cinema, so there was no need to put on any protection at all, any overalls, and it was just a matter of two steps and that got you into the cinema. So Davey, the first guy that went, he went away to the Bond that was the shop on the platform and he picked up some Cokes, mars Bars, twixes, such likes, just some goodies for us, and we got into the cinema and the guys in the cinema that were showing the movie knew that there was people working till nine o'clock that night. So what they? What they did is they started the movie just between five past and ten past nine, just to let everybody get in. That was working. So we got in. It was it.

Speaker 3 10:55

Was it being added to the platform, I think in 1986? So it was one of the more modern social things on paper and it was quite a modern cinema and it held roughly about 40 or so seats it had in the cinema and I was quite busy that night because it was quite a popular movie and it was good. We were just in there enjoying the movie, laughing away. The track was good. But just about 45 minutes or so into the movie you could hear excessive flaring going on outside. The southeast flare boom wasn't too far from the cinema. You could hear excessive flaring going on and it brought a silence over the cinema. People were just having a few curious looks, worried looks, between each other, and there was maybe six or so occidental guys in there same with them, guys a bit curious, a bit worried.

Speaker 3 11:59

But then it subsided and then the noise started getting up again in the cinema, the laughter and such like, but probably just a minute or so. It started up again, but even more intense. You could feel, actually feel the energy coming through the floor, coming through your seat, and then all of a sudden there was a huge explosion. The whole platform rocked back and forward. Part of the roof of the cinema fell in, some of the lighting fell in, but then the lighting failed. It went. It fell into pitch blackness of cinema. So it was a bit of a panic came over the cinema, people screaming, shouting to get out of the cinema. But within maybe 10 to 15 seconds the emergency lighting came on, activated, and it was right. Right, lads, let's calm down here now let's try and get in an orderly fashion, get back out the cinema, back into the main accommodation area, and that's what we've done.

Speaker 3 13:01

But there was total confusion, unbeknown to us, and the first explosion, it totally destroyed the control room. The first explosion was over on the west side of the platform and the gas module c and the actual main control, the platform main control room. The platform was just up above the divide between module c and d and the power of the first explosion totally destroyed the control room. Therefore, there was no alarms went off, there was no tannoys went out to tell people what to do. So when people aren't getting in, getting any information, that was really quite, I wouldn't say, panicky, but people didn't know what to do.

Speaker 3 13:44

My kind of first initial thought was to try and get to my muster point, which was where my lifeboats, that was my lifeboat station and all the lifeboats were stationed more to the north end of the platform. That was where the accommodation module was also located. But after going over to the west side of the platform, there was people coming back from there, guys coming back from there saying no way, you can't get out that way, joe, smoke's too intense. And what happened was that the explosion had sent debris through into Module B and A and that was the drilling modules, and it fractured crude oil pipes which then leaked oil, crude oil which led to an oil-based fire and it was thick, black acrid smoke that caused. So, coming back, trying to go over the east side of this platform, there's people saying no way, you can't get out that way either, it's too thick.

Speaker 3 14:48

So I got separated from the guys I was with in a cinema and maybe after four or five minutes wandering back and forward, just bumping into people, asking them what they were doing, where are you, you going? And the kind of consensus was most people were heading up to the galley area and the galley area was just below the heli deck, at the top of the platform, at the top of the accommodation module, and the reason people were heading there was it was a designated safe area, it wasproofed and it had a positive airflow. So it was a safe area and it should have been safe for about 40 to 50 minutes, fireproofed and such like, as I said. And you were always told whenever well, when I done my survival course before I went home offshore and any renewal ones I'd done as well your first method of evacuation would be by helicopter. So that's kind of how everybody ended up or not everybody, but a lot of people ended up in the galley area.

Speaker 3 15:57

As I made my way up to the galley area and this is maybe nine, ten minutes past 10 now, and the first explosion was just before 10 o'clock I wasn't really sure what to do. There was actually double doors that took you into the galley and I was standing at the entrance of the galley holding the door on the left-hand side open, and I looked in and there was maybe about 80 or so men in there and they were all either lying on the floor leaning on their elbow or just squatting on the floor or sitting on the floor with their backs to the wall more, just to keep as low down as they could. All of a sudden the door on the right-hand side burst open and a guy come in and he shouted is there anybody here from Bordens? And Bordens was the actual drilling crew on Piper done all the drilling on Piper Alpha. Somebody recognized his voice and shouted Mark, we're over here, get yourself over here. And that's what he did. So at that point I thought, well, that's a good idea. And I shouted is there any scaffolders here? And some of the guys I was with earlier on recognized my voice and shouted we're around the back here, joe. And they were actually almost at the opposite side of the galley.

Speaker 3 17:18

So I had to go through the galley and as I was stepping over people to get to the far side of the galley, somebody shouted to the offshore installation manager, calling tell us what's going on, what are we going to do? And you could imagine it would be a bit more forceful than that. And as I look back, unfortunately the guy he was just frozen to the spot. He was just standing straight ahead. This is my recollection of what happened. Yeah, he'd been overcome by the situation.

Speaker 3 17:53

There was another senior management manager from the platform there and he said there'd been a Mayday sent out which there had been from the radio room which was just adjacent to the heli deck, and there should be helicopters here within the next half an hour, 14 minutes, to come and pick us up. So I made my way around through some plastic doors to where my colleagues were at that point and they were the same. They were all sitting on the floor, they all had wet dish towels over their noses and mouth and they said, joe, you'll get a dish towel up at the sink. So there's these big industrial sinks and that was for the catering staff to wash all their cutlery and dishes up at the end of the lunchtime and breakfast time and evening meals and that. And there was a big pile of dry dish towels and I picked one up and just naturally turned the tap on to try and soak the dish towel. It was only dribbles of water coming out the tap and I don't know if it was a kind of a defensive thing from myself not accepting I'm not even believing how bad a situation we were in. But once I turned that tarp on and there was only dribbles of water coming out, I thought to myself, well, there's no power, there's no, there'll be no water, there'll be nothing to fight this fire with god. We're really in a bad situation here now. But there was still water at the bottom of the sink. There was still some residual water lying at the bottom of the sink, so soaked the dish towel in there and went down and sat with the guys who, uh, most of them were working colleagues of me.

Speaker 3 19:42

Mine and I says, right, guys, do we know what's happening? Does anybody have got any information? And they say there'd been two of the firefighting team had come up to the back door of the galley. There was a little back door there and a landing area out the back. It was adjacent to the kitchen and that's where the catering staff would get their supplies delivered. You know, when they come back offshore again in the small quarter containers. They said there'd been two of the firefighting team had come up to the back door there. They had the breathing apparatus on and their PPE and they were going to see if they could find any escape routes and come back and let us know. But they were never coming back.

Speaker 3 20:22

As we were sitting there, you could hear other small explosions happening. You could hear actually groaning and yawning noises which we didn't realize at the time was actually the start. The structure of the platform started to compromise already. This was only 10, 12 minutes into the incident. Therefore, there was windows breaking because, as the structure was compromising, twisting. There was windows getting strained, put on them and they were fracturing and just breaking, and then that was, of course, letting in more smoke. The emergency lighting had failed.

Speaker 3 21:00

By this point he says well, if we stay in here, guys, and anything else happens, we'll not be in a position to do anything for ourselves. Why don't we go outside the back door here, go up on the heli deck and see what we can see for ourselves, and then, after maybe just a minute, minute, minute or so discussing that, we says right, yeah, that's what we're going to do, let's go. So as we got up to leave, there was six guys who there was about 20 of us in that group and it was about six guys. It was six guys who worked for a communication company. They were upgrading the communications on paper, satellite dishes and such like and telephone receivers and such like, and they made no signs of moving.

Speaker 3 21:50

I says to one of the guys cause we'd done a lot of work for them, you know, getting them access to wherever they had to work. And I says to them are you guys not coming with us? And they looked at each other and they said no, we've been told to stay, so we're just going to stay. Says okay, right, good luck to you guys. Her and they said no, we've been told to stay, so we're just going to stay. She says, okay, right, good luck to these guys.

Speaker 3 22:07

So we left and got up onto the heli deck and as soon as we got up on, climbed up on the heli deck, it came apart straight away there'd be no way, not not any helicopters coming close to this platform, never mind trying to land on the platform. The smoke was so intense, just thick black plumes of smoke going hundreds of feet into the air. And the way the sea and the wind was blowing that night it was from south to north. So if a helicopter had to approach, obviously they approached against the wind and that was the way the wind was blowing the smoke to the north. So there would have been absolutely no chance. Even if a helicopter did manage to land on the platform, you could imagine the panic it would have been to where people trying to. You know crazy, it would have been crazy. So let's say, but it came apart pretty much straight away that there would be no chance, any helicopters landing on the platform.

Speaker 3 23:10

So we went along and the radio room which was adjacent to the platform, to the, to the heli deck. We climbed up on top of there because that was the highest point on the platform in that area we could get to, and it was. It was kind of it wasn't taking us above the smoke, but the smoke was coming across in layers that if you were on the beach and you were seeing the waves coming in, and every so often there'd be a gap coming in the smoke, so we'd all stand up and grab a breath of fresh air and then and go back down. It was about 12 or 14 of us and also the Tharos, which was our accommodation support vessel for the shutdown of the platform, was off the west side of the platform and it had moved a bit closer. The Tharos was mainly there for accommodation, but it was also a firefighting vessel and it had a small eight bed medical facilities on it also. It was also a dive support vessel also, but I had only one water cannon, trained on paper up until that point, and this water cannon was right at the top of one of the crane jibs and it was fanning back and forward and it actually caught us on top of this radio room here. That's sold my clothes and my hair actually, and I do believe that saved us from being more badly injured. I'll come on in a little bit later.

Speaker 3 24:34

But then somebody suggested right, let's go over to the west side of the platform and see, maybe the Tharros could move a bit closer, maybe they lay the crane boom onto the emergency heli deck, because Piper had two heli decks he had the main heli deck and an emergency heli deck. If you look at any of the photographs, the emergency heli deck was on the west side of the platform and we got over there. I mean, things were getting desperate, desperate ideas really. We were just scrapping for whatever help we could get and we went over to the west side of the platform and we're waving down at the Tharros, I'm sure. Obviously they could see us say there was 12 or 14 of us and we just got over to that west side of the platform and that's when the riser from the platform fractured the gas riser and that's when the huge, huge fireball engulfed the platform.

Speaker 3 25:32

Everybody just jumped back the way. We didn't actually know what had happened. You just knew something horrendous had happened, where it's all piled on top of each other like a rugby scrum pile up, sort of. And as people got up, they just took off in all different directions. Not another word was spoken between us all. People just took off in all different directions.

Speaker 3 25:56

For some reason I got up and I kind of headed diagonally across the emergency heli deck and there was a radio tower adjacent to this heli deck and I climbed through onto that and started climbing up the internal ladder of the radio mast and it was absolutely taking me nowhere. It didn't feel like panic and I knew what I was doing. I think it was just trying to get away from what was going on beneath me and I got so far up and then I slipped and I thought to myself well, that's that I'm dead here. And at that point something just took over what I was doing. I don't know if it was some higher being looking after me or not, or just the will to live survival instinct. I came down the ladder that took you down to the level below the heli deck, run along to the access stairs that you'd use to go up onto the main heli deck if you were going to catch a chopper to take you back home. Run over to the north side of the platform, had a look over. That huge fireball had cleared all the thick black smoke away, I could actually see down to the sea. I had a life jacket on.

Speaker 3 27:09

At this point, took the life jacket off, threw it in front of me and, although I knew exactly what I was doing, it was almost like an outer body experience. It was like as if some other thing was pushing me to do what I was doing. So I threw this life jacket over the side, knew I could use the supports for the safety net and around the heli deck to propel myself away from the platform, because there were a few overhanging objects below the heli deck. Yeah, use this, use the supports for the safety netting to throw myself off. And as I done that, the first thing come into my head and don't mean to offend anybody here, but as if I just came back to realization and I just thought what the have I done? And then not another thought came into my head, until I hit the water and and it took roughly between five and six seconds to cover that distance, which was 175 feet, so it'd be 53, 54 meters distance. Yeah, then bang, I hit the water. Knew I'd hit the water, obviously still alive, don't know how far I went down, a bit disorientated.

Speaker 3 28:36

The light from the fire above gave me a reference to get back to the surface. Got back to the surface, huge big gulp of breath, had a look around in the water. There was a lot of debris in the water. Looked over to my left hand side and there was a life of debris in the water. Looked over to my left hand side and there was a life jacket floating in the water quite close to me. It could only have been the one I threw in in front of me. Just put my arm through that, my left arm through that, to give me some buoyancy.

Speaker 3 29:04

And, like I said earlier, all the lifeboats were stationed at the north end of the platform. At least one of these lifeboats got blown off in the second explosion and part platform at least one of these lifeboats got blown off in the second explosion and part of the roof of one of them was floating in the water next to me Also used that for a blindsink and started propelling myself away from the platform. And, like I said earlier, the sea and the way the weather was that night running from south to north and the sea was running south to north that was in my favor. The swell and the water was taking me away from the platform also and it was a lovely, calm night. It was a beautiful summer's night, as you often go offshore in the summertime Not quite flat, calm, I'd say maybe half a meter, possibly less than that swell in the water that night, but it was in my favor, taking me away from the platform.

Speaker 3 29:57

Running north, I got so far away and I could see the rest of this shell of a lifeboat floating in the water and I managed. I disregarded the stuff I had and I swam over to the lifeboat, pulled myself up into the lifeboat, sat on the rim of the lifeboat and I looked. I was looking back at the platform, just trying to take in, just trying to remember what I was witnessing. That huge explosion was going on, just just a whole, almost like a wall of flame from the sea upwards. And then I was sitting there and I had my hands on my knees and, because I only had a polo shirt on, I looked down and I had these huge blisters on my hands and arms and I couldn't really figure out what had happened there. But everything was also happening so quickly as well, and I could hear a fast rescue craft in the water, one of these rigid inflatables and I was heading towards the lifeboat they got me into Sorry, I was heading to the lifeboat and they got me into their fast rescue craft, laying me along the side of the fast rescue craft and that's when my injuries started taking effect on me and my adrenaline had subsided a bit.

Speaker 3 31:15

And for the next I think it was the next half an hour 40 minutes I was in and out of consciousness. I do remember them vaguely maneuver me into a stretcher so they could could winch me onto their supply boat. And then, a bit later on, I remember the lights from the crane because they just actually craned the stretcher, the rigid stretcher, straight from the supply boat onto the Tharos. And by that point this is maybe 40 minutes or so later, quarter to 11, maybe 11 o'clock, somewhere in between. That time there'd be medical people arrived out from Aberdeen or some of the other platforms. I do remember them taking me into the hospital facilities on the Tharros and I was going into shock at that point I was shivering and, just you know, losing control. I just remember one of the medics or the doctor saying he needs a shot of morphine and I remember getting that in the left cheek, in my bum and I could feel it spreading across my body. And then they put me on, these me up or whatever as best they could, and they just put me somewhere with somebody looking after me until it was time for me to get the helicopter back to Aberdeen, to get to the hospital. So yeah, that was it.

Speaker 3 32:37

I do remember getting to the hospital. I think it was a Royal Navy helicopter that took me back. I can't really be sure, but I do remember getting into the accident and emergency area of the hospital and it just seemed like total confusion. Total, you know, it was just. I'm sure it was organised confusion, you know what I mean. But there'd been a number of helicopters arrive with people that were injured and then kind of after that, the next thing I remember I was up in a ward and I had been told that my mum and my sister had been notified and where I live wasn't too far from Aberdeen, just about 20 kilometres, 15 miles or so south of Aberdeen and they'd been notified that there had been obviously a disaster. I was one of the survivors, didn't know how I was or anything, but they were heading into Aberdeen to just, you know, obviously see me. So I just kept myself going until they arrived. I didn't really know how badly I was injured or dead either myself, but I just kept myself going until they arrived.

Speaker 3 33:51

And then over the next two or three days it was just a bit of a blur, you know. There was things going on. I had all bits and pieces going in and out of me and you know I was oh no, I had oxygen on a drip. I was at the catheter, they was pumping painkillers into me all the time, you know a feed for just getting my painkillers. So I'd say the two or three days after that was like just a bit of a blur in the ward till we started to recover.

Speaker 3 34:32

I do remember the first two evenings there was a nurse stationed at our bedside just to make sure, just in case anything went wrong during the evening. But yeah, we progressed and we got better and things became I don't know if better, but became more realising of what the situation was, you know. And then just actually just so lucky to be alive. My injuries didn't seem to be actually very of any great consequence at that point, you know, but just so happy to be alive. When you started getting some information, it was only myself and another survivor, roy Carey, were in a ward on their own. Myself and Roy were two of the more badly uh, survivors. Yeah, some of the other guys were in another ward.

Speaker 1 35:30

I I mean, I've heard some of. I've heard this before and it still doesn't change a thing. You know the feelings that, even listening to that story, having a vague understanding of what it's like to be in an emergency situation or in a disaster situation, those feelings, the emotions, the sheer terror, and it'll be different for different people. And I'll be curious as to when people are listening to this, what's actually going on for them as they sit through this story. When people are listening, I can't even imagine.

Speaker 3 36:12

But the the good thing is that you're here to tell it yeah, yeah, yeah, very fortunate still to be here and, uh, I don't mind current sharing my story and I think we've discussed it before you know and yeah it helps, you know if it helps make a difference for, yeah, yeah, mostly people that work offshore or whatever, but obviously in other industries as well. You know chemical plants, oil refineries, oil terminals, you know mining industries, heavy engineering. There's similarities between them all you know. There's similarities between them, all you know.

Lessons Learned From Piper Alpha Incident

Speaker 1 36:51

We do a lot in that safety space to help people have better mindsets and all sorts of things. But these sorts of events are much bigger. They didn't just happen on that day. There's a lot of things, a lot of moments leading up to the moment, and it could have been over a period of months, if not years, of way of doing things, of behavioral patterns, of leadership or not. That you know.

Speaker 1 37:19

Coming back to what we said at the beginning around people being able to speak up about just their instincts, which you know, back in the 80s it's not something that you did in any industry really and you went to work and if you didn't like it, well, be quiet about it and get on with it, and so you know. So I think something that's very good in this day and age is that we're starting to really recognize that shift that has to happen. You know, when I've ever used this example in workshops not the direct story, obviously, but the Piper Alpha event in itself I often ask people what is the one thing that could have made a lot of difference long before the explosions and everything happened, and it's always interesting the answer. So I've got to ask you that question what do you think, before everything started to go wrong, what do you think is the one thing that should have happened?

Speaker 3 38:11

well, it's like you said current, built up over years and the health and safety legislation that applied on shore never ever applied offshore. The government was against. The operators were against. The unions tried to push it. There was no union recognition at all offshore. The government at the time had just been through their battle with the miners in the late 70s, mid to late 70s. The workers had to be listened to. Yeah, it's just, and it wasn't happening. And it wasn't. I mean, and I mean that from the guys who cleaned the rooms, cleaned the, you know the catering staff, that the stewards that cleaned the rooms cleaned the bathrooms, to the, to the men all the way up to the top of on the platform. I'm sure they must have reservations about things as well, but they weren't willing to speak up enough about it either.

Speaker 1 39:20

Yeah, and I think that's a really good poignant point, it isn't about any one person or role or responsibility. It's something that is suffered across the board, that inability to speak up or that inability to be vulnerable. You know, which is where this whole conversation around psychological safety comes into play. You know how do we help everybody be okay with their vulnerability, and sometimes that's just saying hello in a meeting. You know it doesn't have to be even more complicated than that, you know, especially if it's a new environment for a person. Yeah, there's a great couple of good questions here and thoughts that Nils has written down as well. Coming back to the event itself, what were some of the key changes that happened as a result of that event and then the ensuing Cullen report, the outcome of the Cullen report? What do you think were the key changes that happened as a result of that event and then the ensuing Cullen report, the outcome of the Cullen report? What do you think were the key things and are we doing them today?

Speaker 3 40:19

Yeah, well, I think the real first one was the realisation through the whole oil industry wow, this can't happen. I think whether they ignored it, turned a blind eye to it, willfully ignored it, it came obviously evident in this huge disaster that this can happen and I think it opened everybody's eyes up to you know, well, this can happen. The yeah, the second part. Sorry, what was I getting at?

Speaker 1 40:58

Well, have we learned the lessons?

Cost of Safety in Business Operations

Speaker 3 41:01

Have we learned? Yes, yeah, that's right. Have we learned? Sorry, or implemented? Even more important? Yeah, I think there is. But also, as times went by, I mean it's great.

Speaker 3 41:15

I go in and speak to a number of companies and there's been a few that are high profile or, you know, the top companies have had me in quite a bit, but it's the other companies that don't take you in. You know what I mean. And things can be tight. You know margins can be tight for smaller companies. They're getting squeezed sometimes from the and things can be tight, you know margins can be tight for smaller companies. They're getting squeezed sometimes from the top as well.

Speaker 3 41:37

And there will always be people, you know, that will be trying to cut corners. And I use Grenfell as an example in my presentation. When the government eased the legislation on building work legislation and it was self-regulated, there was people cutting corners there, saving money, total confusion. When emergency services turned up at Grenfell, they didn't even know what material was getting used as cladding and it was only fire resistant cladding. It wasn't fireproof cladding. There was people making cutbacks and that was obviously a bit more modern. But back in the day and I spoke about this people back in the day and it wasn't just with Piper, but if you think back to the eighties, there was so many things happening in the UK and there was King's Cross was one of the things. This fire at King's Cross there was also the first one I remember and I think it was shown when I done my survival course was the fire at the Bradford football stadium.

Speaker 3 42:44

You had trains crashes at Clapham Junction, I think it was and you had Zabaruga also, and you had Lockerbie a totally different thing, but that was the same year as Piper and then you had Hillsborough the year after that. There was people back then making decisions and also and I think this includes the post office and the blood transfusion scandal as well there was people making decisions back then with impunity, thinking they would never be held account because most of them have passed away now that they won't be held accountable. But they were making decisions back then, like I say, with impunity and no real sort of being held accountable for it Accountable yeah, interesting.

Speaker 1 43:35

I'm going to take you back to something. There's smaller companies that might not take you in for a whole range of reasons, but interestingly, so many of these events around the world are big organizations. They're not small ones. You think Texas City, you think Bhopal, you think you know Longford. There's a Macondo right. These are all still these big, big events that happen.

Speaker 1 44:01

And you know, maybe that is where we need to think more deeply about, I'm going to say, leadership decisions, the finance. You know who's running the business? Is it finance or is it getting the job done safely and efficiently? We talk a lot about the cost of not doing business safely. What are the consequences? And I'm not suggesting that people do this always intentionally. Sometimes they think they're doing the right thing for the business or the, the operation or for the. You know, it's not always with bad intent and probably often not with bad intent, except when you can see people, organizations, truly cutting corners, as in the case of grenfell, you know, then it's a little more obvious and and that's sadly that story is still going on.

Speaker 3 44:52

Hmm, yeah.

Speaker 1 44:54

Yeah.

Speaker 3 44:55

I can't imagine anybody will be held accountable for that, because I think it's just going around in circles that, yeah, I mean, I mean you're right, karen, it is big organizations, but there's so many subcontractors come in, you know, and uh, I have some of the things I've been at. I'm not mentioning any names, but they've been asking me how do we get this message over to our contractors, how do we get the message of safety over to them? And I just try to say, well, you just have to get them engaged more. And even, you know, I've said at times, get them, ask them to come up and do a presentation for safety. You know you don't preach to them all the time. Get them or get them involved. You know, get somebody coming up from different contractors and share with them what you're wanting to do and let them.

Speaker 3 45:51

It's not the easiest thing to do in the world, no, it's not yeah, and just try to get everybody and kind of give an example you don't want any elitists on these platforms can only speak about, because everybody's on there together. And I say, well, if you go on an airplane, and it doesn't matter if you turn left when you go on, turn right, you know to go where you're sitting, you know if that plane gets into problems or trouble, you're all in it together. You know Might be the same way a ship as well, you know. I mean you know it is.

Speaker 3 46:35

Yeah. So just try to do that analogy. On a platform you're all in it together and nobody has to work together. Safety your machinery, your machinery working on the platform. Piper had a defective deluge system. It was. Lloyd's of London had done an audit on it in 1986. It was condemned. Occidental protested against that, put an objection in for that and they got a two-year exemption. The government back in that day and the oil companies were pretty much working hand in hand Because back then, karen and I, it was the Department of Energy that overseen health and safety offshore. So they obviously had a conflict of interest and Lord Cullen's report highlighted that and said and advised it should be the health and safety executive who is in charge of health and safety offshore, which did happen. Just about all the recommendations were taken up by their own companies, but I'm sure a few of them have you know.

Speaker 1 47:55

I think one of the things that we talk about is that immunity. You know we become immune. We become a little bit complacent, we get a little too comfortable, you know. We get that sense of you know this won't or can't happen to us again. That was then, now is now you know there is all I'm sure you know.

Speaker 1 48:12

There's this array of thoughts and emotions and conflicts, I think, in terms of getting business done, versus I'm thinking of the blue money rules. You know that money where? What do we need to spend to not make that happen? But it's a very difficult conversation because people don't know why they're spending it yet until it happens.

Speaker 3 48:37

Yes.

Speaker 1 48:37

And how do we help people to realize that if they put in I'm just going to use small numbers here to make this a little bit you know, in the case of it I mean the cost of an event like that, well, it was enormous for individuals, for the operations, for everything. But let's come back down to smaller size events. You know where there's a recovery process. You know, let's say, something costs a million pounds in in cost in the event, costing the business money. Had they maybe spent £100,000, they would have saved £900,000. But they don't look at it from that perspective because there's shareholders and there's price indexes and all sorts of other things that get involved in the conversation, which should never be ignored. They're part of doing business. But how do we get people to be more proactive in recognizing the cost?

Holding a Mirror to Safety Culture

Speaker 2 49:32

I suppose Very much that, but you said something earlier as well, and it just made me think of context, because all of this is around context. So whether it is the context of the organizational culture, the way things are done around here and that flows right through to the contractors, and when we have a certain way of doing things. And I remember I cannot remember the woman's name from BP, but there was the example of one of their electrical contractors and they kept getting an arc on this particular piece of equipment and they just kept firing the electrical contractors and getting another one in and firing the next one and getting another one in, and eventually they found out that actually they hadn't given the contractors the correct drawings. So the fault wasn't on the contractor, the fault was actually on the organization, and kudos to her, because she actually went back to all the previous contractors and apologized and said you know, this is what's happened, but they walked away with this massive failure against them, whereas they're trying to do the job, and I think that happens in a lot of times.

Speaker 2 50:35

So, kaz, going back to what you were saying about being proactive, we don't want to acknowledge that the devil never sleeps and there's a brilliant book about crisis management called the Devil Never Sleeps, and we're not having those really hard conversations of what could be going wrong in our systems.

Speaker 2 50:55

How are we not communicating? How are things slipping through the cracks? Because we all have that superhero feeling of it won't happen to us. And when I get behind a steering wheel of a car, I'm not imagining that I'm going out to have an accident. I'm imagining that I'm going out to have a safe day, I'm going to have a good drive, I'm going to come home and I'm going to have a safe day. And if I'm questioning all the time, I'm also going to be exhausted, you know so we can't constantly be living in fear and questioning, but be living in fear and questioning. But maybe we need to find a balance of questioning and being a little bit harder on ourselves around the context that we're in, holding the mirror up and going. What do we need to be differently or need to be doing differently, so that people don't have to learn from their own mistakes?

Speaker 3 51:44

Yeah, the consequences of those mistakes, yeah, the consequences of those mistakes, hmm.

Speaker 3 51:49

I do believe and it's not happened for years and years, and it should have happened if people or minds, directors, ceos, if it taken all the way back to them, if they were held accountable and taken to court, charles, with either manslaughter or, you know, death caused by reckless decisions, however that would go down, I think that would have filtered through many managing directors and CEOs and senior management of companies across the board. You know. That would maybe make them think twice about maybe taking that little extra gamble.

Speaker 1 52:37

In so many industries and other arenas, like politics, but that's for another day. But that's for another day.

Speaker 2 52:54

But it's such a good thing, because that is part of that. Holding that mirror is that the decisions that are being made from the very top, whether it is the way that your cleaning staff are treated, that culture runs all the way through. So it's the small things, you know, and it probably sounds a bit harsh, but I judge people on how they treat service staff. So when I go to a restaurant or, you know, go anywhere where there's service staff and I'm around people who have disdain or they're just there to serve me, I question it because I go.

Speaker 2 53:28

Well, if that's how you are in this aspect of your life, what are you like in the rest of your life? How are you treating the people, the work environment? What message are you sending as to whether people have value? Because if we don't feel we have value, we're not going to speak up, we're going to just sit back. We have value, we're not going to speak up, we're going to just sit back and we're not going to be able to create safer work environments. So I think there's a huge responsibility for people who are in leadership positions and I think that is becoming more and more, especially with the updated ISO 45001. I mean, I can see it even here in South Africa. There has been one CEO who has been taken to court and it's created, you know, quite a ripple effect of gosh. Actually, we are responsible. Yes, because it starts from there and then ripples through the business.

Speaker 1 54:22

It's both a legal and a moral obligation, and I think that word obligation is a much better one than accountability and responsibility. Yeah, because if we're obligated to do something, then that's much more personal.

Speaker 3 54:35

You're going to say I just one example, and it's, it's, it's, it's kind of along that lines, but it's not. It's. In March, april of 88, we found out I was saying it was my second trip on Piper we found out there was a new maintenance contractor who would be coming in and taking over the maintenance contractor. So there was about 90 men between all the different trades the pipe fitters, the welders, platers, riggers, the scaffolders, the painters. You know we were all under the umbrella of the maintenance contract and we found out that there was a well, there was a rumour going about at first, and then we found out, yeah, the new maintenance contract was coming in and we were told all the guys that were you know that their jobs were safe and we'd you know we'd carry on as we were. The only thing we had to do was change the color of our overalls. But also we had to take a pay cut from £5.20 an hour to £4.90. And there was obviously quite a bit more back then.

Speaker 3 55:39

But it was the effect had on morale on the platform. It was just. It was it was just like really devastating right across the platform and it would have been about 65, 67 pounds, it depends how many hours you work your two weeks offshore and back then that did pay a fair bit of my mortgage back then. But it was just the effect and people were saying, well, we are getting treated like shit. And it was subconsciously, subconscious I go back to this quite a bit Subconsciously it had a huge effect on the men. But it wasn't just on paper that was happening. It was happening all over the North Sea because the oil price had crashed back in 1985, I think it was or something and it was obviously a great way of saving money for the oil companies. I see it happened across the board in the North Sea. But it's huge effect it had on morale on the platform and I say subconsciously, it had a great effect on people without a doubt.

Speaker 2 56:44

And then I think we've experienced that in other situations as well where people don't consider when they're going to send a message, and especially for people who are working in remote whether it's offshore mining, you know getting a message of uncertainty. You know, right before christmas, what effect and impact that has, because somebody's been told they need to send a message out and they just go oh okay, well, it's the 21st of December, I need to send the message. I'm sending it, not going. Could we hold off on this, you know, or at least give people a heads up?

Speaker 2 57:19

I remember the one vessel I was working on and they got some really bad news just like literally the day before Christmas. And you know, I was incredibly impressed with OIM because he did he just kind of shut everything down, got everybody in talking, you know, like how are you feeling about this? What can we do about it? Because he had had a previous experience that had resulted in quite a bad incident because of the emotional state of the people that he was working with and he was like I'm not repeating that. So let's just get everybody on an even keel, even if it means we shut down for six hours.

Speaker 3 57:57

Oh, that's, that's that's learning from his previous experience, you know? And uh, yeah, definitely it's. It's usually significant for the people at the lower end of the base scale, probably.

Speaker 1 58:17

I think you know we talk about emotional intelligence and you know people say don't get emotional. But all of those things are about emotions and we need to help people understand what those things are. And hence the conversation around mental health although I prefer mental fitness and what can we do before we get to that point, and all of these elements that we've just considerations are part of that conversation. It isn't any one thing conversation. It isn't any one thing. So, to kind of wrap this up, we often like to ask the magic question and that would be if you could just money was no object all the time, or money was no object If you could have one miracle that would change the way that we do business, let's say in the offshore industry or in health and safety for the offshore industry, that would impact safety culture. What would it be? What would you love to see?

Speaker 3 59:17

I've never had that question before. Yeah, what would that be? I don't know. I think you've got me there.

Speaker 2 59:26

Karen, you know it's a really good question when you need time to process and think Absolutely.

Speaker 1 59:32

Well, let me ask a slightly different question.

Speaker 3 59:35

Yeah right.

Speaker 1 59:37

What's something that you feel that does need to still be implemented today that maybe hasn't done so? They haven't done so well yet.

Speaker 3 59:47

Well, obviously, especially in the RC now we're getting older assets and the one thing I believe that would have helped us tremendously on that night, karen, would have been if we had a fully functional Dell use system.

Speaker 3 1:00:07

And unfortunately that night and this happened all through the summertime the OIM, his decision, was to put the deluge system on manual and it wasn't on automatic because there was divers in the water from Piper every night during the summertime, not unless the weather was too bad or whatever.

Speaker 3 1:00:29

But I believe it would have saved a lot more lives that night if we had a proper, fully functional deluge system, even if it was working at 75% and it had been probably switched on. As far as I'm aware, it was the OIM's decision that was on manual, even if it was on automatic. Like I said, it wasn't fully functional anyway, it wasn't even 50% I don't think. But at least it might have been something. It could have kept everything cooler, possibly for a bit longer on a platform. Have kept everything cooler, possibly for a bit longer on the platform. It would have maybe suppressed the smoke, you know, dampened down the oil-based fire a bit, but that would have been the biggest thing that would have helped us that evening A truly functional safety system in all platforms you know, as high as near to 100% as possible.

Speaker 1 1:01:31

And maybe just I'm going to add some words to this, and maybe adding to that would be helping those in positions of decision-making, helping them to be better at it and making better choices. So how do we help?

Speaker 1 1:01:47

You know, maybe it's about let's continue learning and helping that leadership and the decision-making process to be more in favour of getting it right more often, and maybe that would be the miracle thing, you know, whether it's maintenance, making people feel safe to speak up, whether it's you it's following, or being open to being challenged for a procedure that might not be working as well as it once did. So maybe that is the miracle we're all looking for in any situation 100% in charge of the maintenance guys, the drilling guys, the well-controlled guys.

Speaker 3 1:02:28

Let them have their decisions and give them the equipment, the stuff they need to do their job properly.

Speaker 1 1:02:36

Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:02:40

I want to add to that and encourage people to ask the question of what are we not seeing or what do we not want to see in this situation? Because, especially when we think of the industries we're in, you know it's industries where you have to be making quick decisions and you know, because, if we go back to personality, diversity, people who are fast-paced make a decision. It's my way or the highway. I've come up with an idea, we're just going to go with it and then people just go. Okay, well, you're the boss, we're going to go with it. There's a chain of command and how do we create places where it's safe to actually challenge and go?

Speaker 2 1:03:17

What are we not seeing in this decision? Because it might sound like a good idea, but if all we have are followers and we don't have challenges, we may be missing an entire area. That goes well if we have the deluge system on manual. These are the potential consequences, but I haven't thought of those because I don't want to see what could go wrong. I just want to see what is right in the idea that I've come up with. And that's tough, that's a hard challenge. It is yeah.

Speaker 1 1:03:47

Food for thought for those Absolutely, and for those who will get the joy of listening to this and we really hope that by Joe sharing his story that makes us think and constantly be brought to the realities of when it goes horribly wrong. And also, what are we doing when we're in that situation? How do we make something not be as horribly wrong, for example, making sure the systems, et cetera, are in place, because I think it would be naive to think that nothing will ever go wrong. That's not being safe. It's how we manage, how we discuss, how do we be proactive and lead from the future instead of from behind.

Speaker 3 1:04:38

Yeah, 100%. And I would say that was one of my biggest regrets from my time back offshore, that I didn't appreciate how dangerous a situation I was working in myself. You always thought, no, it'll never happen to me, it's going to happen, it'll happen with somebody else's, I'll be on shore, or yeah. And it's just that basic mentality and maybe men are sometimes worse at it and others thinking no, no, bravo, it'll never happen to me well, I think that's just called welcome to being a human being in humanity.

Speaker 1 1:05:16

But otherwise we would never get much done if we didn't sort of believe a little bit that it's not going to happen to me. You know it's just how far do we push that button. So thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you you're welcome so how can people reach out to you?

Speaker 1 1:05:33

where's the best place for people to come and reach out to you if they want you to speak at their workplace or event? We will put this into the show notes as well, just for those that are listening linkedin is probably the best way to get in contact with me.

Speaker 3 1:05:50

I've got my profile up on LinkedIn and, yeah, if anybody wants to send me a message through LinkedIn, I'm quite happy to give them any information they need, and we can take it from there Brilliant.

Speaker 2 1:06:05

Thank you. Thank you for joining us today. It is always lovely to have conversations that matter To learn more about creating a culture of safety and care. Please visit our website safetycollaborationscom to access our show notes, resources and guides. Leave us a message via the message us section on the show notes page and we'll get back to you.

Speaker 1 1:06:29

You can also join our community on social media by following us on our LinkedIn pages Safety Collaborations Karen Avari and Noorla Gage and on our new Safety Collaborations social channels YouTube, facebook and Instagram. Our handle Safety Collaborations is much the same Sharing is caring. Follow us on your favourite podcast platform. Leave us a five-star review. It would be awesome. Doing these things helps us to grow and share our collective conversations. Till next time stay safe and stay well.