Action Beyond Compliance: Steve Rae's Piper Alpha Experience and Its Impact on Industry Safety

In this episode Kenny is Joined by Steve Rae of Fortitude - Action Beyond Compliance to discuss his oil and gas career and the life-altering experience of the Piper Alpha disaster.

Steve recounts his journey from the Aberdeen oil boom to working offshore. The core of the episode is his minute-by-minute account of the July 6, 1988 disaster, including his narrow escape from falling debris, the 70ft jump into the North Sea, and his subsequent rescue.

He explains how this event fundamentally shifted his professional focus, fostering his strong belief that "a good work ethic delivers good safety" and leading to his current role as an advocate for proactive safety culture within the industry.

We have a part II coming in a couple weeks where Steve discusses how this shaped his career going forward...

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Today we're joined by Steve Ray. Steve, can you just share who you are and what it is you do?

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Yeah, Kenny. Well, I'm Steve Ray. Uh what do I do? I do my best to try and influence companies, safety culture. Uh I do that through my own limited company that we I share responsibility with, my wife, a company called Fortitude Action Beyond Compliance. Uh we uh we've been doing so for a couple of years now, and I don't market my services, but I've got a really crappy business plan for retirement, which is don't market and it'll eventually go away. Right. But every time I do a session or an event, typically I get four and away through through referral. Yeah. So it's a really crappy retirement plan. No, fair enough. But it's just about discipline.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

And what obviously health and safety is a massive part of your life, and we'll get to obviously that's through the Piper Alpha and everything else, and we'll we'll come to that. But you grew up in the kind of oil boom at Aberdeen in the 70s, I guess. So what was what was that like? And was oil and gas always going to be the thing for you?

SPEAKER_00 1:03

So uh it's interesting. The first recollection I've got of oil and gas in Aberdeen was when uh my family, uh my four siblings and my parents and I were up in Nahum, and there was a jacket being towed out in my I'd say it was probably very early 70s. And I remember on the beach, I could have only been 10, 11 at the time, thinking, What's that thing going up there? Yeah. And even my dad wasn't very Aberdeen must have been thinking that. My dad wasn't even that aware either, because he was uh he was in the building trades. Yeah. And that was my first thoughts of um what oil and gas was like. And uh by the time I got to being 18 years old, uh, I could think of nothing else about for him getting into the industry because a lot of the buddies buddies by that time were making good money. Yeah, and what was school like for you? So school, uh school for a tall lad is always a bit easier. Yeah, I think primary school, middle through primary school, I went to primary school, I was it was the best time of my youth. Uh we had a family connection, uh geez, my auntie cleaned it, my dad maintained it, my my siblings had been there. Right. So going in as a four or thirty five siblings, we already had a trap record. And I just had the best of time. I mean, I was quite uh good at sports, I was very academic at times, and I just seemed to have a brilliant time at primary school. Norfolk Academy was pretty tough school at the time, and hey, I was doing well.

SPEAKER_01 2:25

Still easier for a big boy though.

SPEAKER_00 2:27

Yeah, again, but there's always tougher, harder boys when you're up to secondary school and you've just got to know who they are. What really affected secondary school for me and brothers actually was uh I'm gonna say in 1976, February 1976, my father passed away suddenly. Uh, my older brother was just going into his GSEs at the time, okay, which was difficult for him. And I was just going into third year, which really impacted my my focus in school. Yeah uh thankfully we got through uh we had some pretty good qualifications. Uh but for me, uh my father passing so young really tore away a lot of our teenage time uh because we kind of thought certainly my brothers have got two brothers. What age was your dad? My dad was only uh let me think he would have been four going in, we'd have been 42, going done in 43. Oh, that's young. Uh fit, healthy uh man. And what was that? He took a massive cornery. Wow. And uh one Saturday morning, and uh we were all in the house at the time. It was I always remember it till the day I pass. Yeah, and it was such a huge impact on our entire family. It just changed things from what school, what careers we planned, and uh how we managed. My mother did a fantastic job of bringing the five of us up herself, and uh we all mucked in from a very early age. Yeah, we all contributed as best we could and give her as little as you could. It was entirely possible.

SPEAKER_01 3:48

Yeah. So you finished school, you became an electic. I did. So was it written in between, or was that your kind of first job?

SPEAKER_00 3:55

No, I wasn't in the first job. I was working uh would have probably been 25 hours a week, some weeks, uh helping on construction sites, delivering milk, uh working in bakery.

SPEAKER_01 4:09

Was that the chip in?

SPEAKER_00 4:10

It was just to generate pocket money for myself so I didn't have to depend on my mum. Yeah. Uh, but also it just it was just the ethic we'd been we'd been brought with. Yeah, the work ethic was good. And so I was getting up at five in the morning at the weekends to go into somebody's bakery on Granite Hill Road. And they I'd finished that and then I'd go and deliver green finals in the evening, then I'd play my football in between. Yeah. Uh we I look at some of the buildings that we've got around town, like uh the town council's facility at Katie Brewster, or I look at the new airport, it was new at the time, I look at St. Fergus, I still fixed as a 13-year-old making brilliant money, yeah, pocket money, uh, and watching those places, not knowing what they were going to do, just being created. Yeah. And I really learned a lot about working as part of a team and responsibility because we'd get left as 13-year-olds and say, Guess what you've got to do, we'll be back in an hour and a half. You need to get it done. It was just a fantastic education.

SPEAKER_01 5:04

So moving into oil and gas, so obviously, boom time around about that time for oil and gas here. And when I came up here, people always said, Oh, in the 70s and 80s, basically people just walked into a pub and said, We need guys, and then everybody got a job, and it was very easy to get into oil and gas, which it isn't it today. So, how how was it for you?

SPEAKER_00 5:21

So, I I served a traditional apprenticeship as an electrical engineer, stroke uh technician, and we actually worked in servicing uh trawlers mostly and papermills. Right. So I wasn't really exposed to oil and gas until my boss at the time, Donald Williamson, had got wind of this new industry. It was developing very quickly, and sort of a business opportunity, and he started trying to get work from Corical Phillips, etc.

SPEAKER_01 5:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 5:47

Which he was semi-successful at, but I just got the feeling at that time as my as my time was finishing, if you like, as I was uh moving from journey uh apprentice to journeyman, they weren't really sort of driven on it. Driven on it.

SPEAKER_01 6:01

No seeing the opportunity.

SPEAKER_00 6:02

Not not really. No, I think they they wanted to stick with traditional industries mostly, certainly the other partner did. And I knew that uh as soon as my time was out and I've been 82, uh, despite having worked there since I was 15. I just knew I had to go somewhere else, so I was going to get into oil and gas.

SPEAKER_01 6:18

And what about your older siblings? Any of them in oil and gas?

SPEAKER_00 6:21

Oh yeah, um my brother, Shelby's time, was a motor mechanic. And before literally as soon as he was finished, he was doing homers and stuff like kids do when they're growing up for the extra pocket money. He got involved in the the oil gas service business, making uh drill bits and big downhole tools. Yeah. And he eventually ended up with his own company in Norway. Uh, had a very successful career in Norway. Uh, my younger brother went offshore, and my recommendations is a story about that we'll probably get to. And my sister was in travel, so that was booming for oil and gas. And the older sister, uh Linda, ended up uh in what would you call that, travel as well. She ended up working for British Airways. Right. Originally, she was not working for British Airways, she was working for a company called Aliday, right? And her flight was Aberdeen Sumbara. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:15

All oil and gas, yeah. So you can see even then. Which it obviously still is today, maybe a week degrees, and that's changing. But what was your what was your first trip offshore like then?

SPEAKER_00 7:30

So my first trip offshore was when I with a company called Kestro Marine, I was a maintenance electrician looking after all the well-when plants. We had a fabrication shop, huge fabrication shop, and they'd picked up some work.

SPEAKER_01 7:43

An Aberdeen company.

SPEAKER_00 7:49

And they picked up work on a semi-submersible, it was the Dundee Kings North. I've always remember that. So my first boots on an oil rig was stepping off the key at Peterhead onto the pontoons. Right. And uh my first appreciation of how different and dangerous it could be was I was one of the first guys, at what was there been in that time, 20? Yeah, who opened the tanks on the pontoons and went inside that they'd have been flooded all the time. And I remember going down the ladders and there was about an inch of silt and mud on the ladders. And my job as a 20-year-old at that time was to illuminate those tanks for welders to go in and grind and burn and all the rest of it. Such an interesting uh baptism for the oil and gas.

SPEAKER_01 8:34

So that kind of fits in then, because people say oil and gas was like the Wild West in the 80s. So use an example of that. So hey, we were all everywhere.

SPEAKER_00 8:43

I I couldn't say everywhere. I I think what I would say is I got the call on a Thursday and a Friday, maybe from a boss saying you just need to go and put some temporary lighting in on a on a vessel that's coming out to Peter Head.

SPEAKER_02 8:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:55

Get yourself some temporary lighting and some cable and up you go. Yeah. And that's what we did. We literally did. Um threw in the back the pickup, got to Peter Head, and it was Google Go. Google Go. And we didn't really do written risk assessments or any of that. It was like we went like Leonus Barkey.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

This is obviously the pre-piper, and there's a piper.

SPEAKER_00 9:14

Well, 82, pre-piper. It was really me going offshore uh as an offshore worker. Yeah, you know, but I kind of felt then, wow, these things are.

SPEAKER_01 9:22

Well about like going on a chopper for the first time or so.

SPEAKER_00 9:25

My first again, you know, I I had a couple of almost false starts again, because the second time I went offshore, I left a company uh in Aberdeen where I was an electrical engineer doing ad hoc work. And I remember it well, it was on the 28th of December. Uh it would have been 83, maybe 84. And I decided to join a company called Western Oceanic, and they had a rigged, the Pace Setter one that was sitting in Invergordon getting ready to go out. And I was told by a good friend of mine who was a mechanic on there, you mark, you make a great sparky. Just get yourself up there. And once we get out, it becomes I'll just have to get through getting out to work. And I remember going up to Invergordon by train. No, actually, I went up by bus with the crew, and I think the first two days I transferred my boat out to the rig, and it was absolutely chaos. There was more people than I was beds. Right, okay. I was by the time, naive as I was, by the time I finished doing what I was doing, I got to the galley, most of the food was gone. Right. There was no standard PPE for you to collect, supposed to bring your own. It was just a nightmare. Seriously. And all the things I was asked to go and check out, I could think of the drilling, uh, the uh the heath compensators, they'd just been painted, everything was wet with paint in the in the middle of December, yeah, end of December. And I did it for two nights, and I just decided this is not for me. And it was on the 31st of December, Hogwin A, if you like. And I was like, I can't do this.

SPEAKER_01 10:52

You need to get him.

SPEAKER_00 10:53

He went home and I went up to an American tool push and I said, Look, I just need to get off. And he went, it gets better. I said, No, I just need to leave now. And he went, Well, there's nothing, you can't get off. Yeah. I said, You need to get me a boat now. And he did. He went, he called the transit boat, and I got into Invergordon about gonna say four o'clock in the afternoon.

SPEAKER_01 11:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:10

Pitch dark at that time of year. No plan. Got a bus to Inverness, got the train in, and the only thing I could think about coming in in the train was, my mother's gonna go crazy. She's gonna go absolutely ballistic because I've quit my job. And what was what was the sort of final straw then for just a I kept on getting electrical dunts, shocks off the off through the wet paint and the in the wet driving snow and all that. I just was like, but it's just it just can't be. It's not getting any better, you know? Yeah. So I remember not telling anyone and wandering in that pub just next door, hailoft.

SPEAKER_01 11:42

Yeah. And your mother and ever said, You've been you're back two days.

SPEAKER_00 11:46

No, because I didn't go home, I just went straight to the boozer. Right, okay. And I remember thinking, I'll face that in the morning, you know. And uh in my fuss foot on that night was to my boss, Mike Crawford, who I just quit to go and work in the rig. And I went to first food him in his house, knocked on the door, and his wife came in. She said, Steve, I'm sorry, is Mike and she said I I thought you were on his rig. I said, Well, that was a story. Yeah, and thankfully Mike had sort of seen it coming. Okay. Uh, he'd worked offshore a lot of his like, and he said, Steve, I haven't even told him yet, he said it to the middle, it's in the year. Straight back to work. And I went back to work the next day, and so I could go home in that morning and say to my mum, I've changed jobs, but I've got a job. That was for me was the most important thing.

SPEAKER_01 12:25

So, what was the next opportunity then to go back offshore?

SPEAKER_00 12:28

So when I joined Rad Company were pushing me offshore willingly, uh, but the thing that was happening was I was ending up spending more time than not offshore, which was great to start with because you made fantastic money. Yeah, I bought more in first flat in Aberdeen. And then I realised that my buddies that were working offshore were having a better time than me because they were on equal rotation. Okay. And I was like, I just And you were just ad hoc. I was just ad hoc, but more ad than hock. Yeah. And I just decided I needed to get a proper job, yeah, proper offshore. And I left that company again for the second time and I started as a contractor uh doing offshore maintenance. Okay. Uh and I did that for a year before I ended up, that would have been '84.

SPEAKER_01 13:09

So what rig were you on then?

SPEAKER_00 13:11

Oh well, that's where I really gained a lot of experience because between working for Brown Baveri and doing my year and a half as a contractor, I must have visited 25 different installations. And that really allowed me to see how all the different operators worked, you know, from Marathon to BP to Shell to Bits Gas.

SPEAKER_01 13:29

And was there good and bad at that time, or were they all pretty much in the same place?

SPEAKER_00 13:32

No, no, there weren't. The way I describe it is it was those that were really serious about it, there was those that saw it as a thing they had to do. Okay. And there's those that were like, if it gets in the way, we'll do something about it. Yeah. And I will not name those companies, but that's when it became fairly clear to me there was no one offshore safety culture that was like whatever went on that rig depended on who was running it.

SPEAKER_01 13:54

But did the guys working on the rigs at that time even consider that? There'd never been a piper at that point. So did was it was it even a thing, or was it just well well, this is where we work?

SPEAKER_00 14:02

No, no, hey, there'd been incidents, there'd been explosions, there'd been helicopters going down, Alexander Keelan happened. No, so we talk about things in the Tea Shacks and at night, because we didn't go to our rooms at pipe. Yeah. We sat around a smoker room or we watched a TV or a film and we just talk about those things. So I heard a lot about things like that, you know, and I remember thinking, geez, we talk about it, really changes anything. And I really looking back, I know at that time I genuinely thought if we're going to be safe offshore, it's what I do. Yeah. I just need to make sure what I do is safe for me and for my buddies.

SPEAKER_01 14:35

And we we spoke to George Ewell on this podcast as well, and he'd he had mentioned the Piper Alpha, and we kind of really have a podcast where you were do talking about Piper Alpha. So and he had said he'd been on that asset a couple of times before that, and there was problems before that. It kind of it wasn't a surprise that such a thing happened.

SPEAKER_00 14:57

Sadly, no. Um I mean I'd been all over the Brent, the 40s, the Brays, Mutreau, I'd been on lots of different installations. But I'd never been on Occidental's installations and I'd never really heard much about it. But I realized from the day I went on it was completely different.

SPEAKER_01 15:14

How long how long were you on the paper before?

SPEAKER_00 15:16

Well, I went a I left Alwyn, which I should have I should have stayed in Alwyn if I'd any sense. Uh because that was a 30-year brand new field. I could have been there all my career. Yeah. But I was offered a lot of. What did you move? Was it money? No, not money. I was so interested in things around that time. At that time, which would have been 87. I'd been on Alwyn since it was installed, which was 85. And people talked about a 30-year career. Yeah. I was in a maintenance corpor position, but they wouldn't take you on staff. Yeah. They wanted to keep you as contract. And I thought, hmm, I'm missing out on all the benefits you get with a staff company. Okay. Pension, medical cover, and all that kind of stuff. And I thought, right, okay, if I'm going to do something, and oil price was terrible, $20 a barrel. We had been for, on average, most of the 80s. So I'd actually started to turn uh applying to go and immigrate to Australia. Yeah. I've got all my forums, I'd filled it all in, and we've got folks over there, so I had sponsors, I got references from all my previous employers that were really glowing.

SPEAKER_01 16:15

And what was the plan there?

SPEAKER_00 16:15

Be an electrician earlier or I was going into work in a car plant, holding motors, I think it was. And I was pretty far down the pipeline. And the intention was I'd just leave them offshore and borrowed and go. And then I was offered a staff job in December 88. And I was like, well, I think I'd take a bad time, end of the year, I'm not a good end of the year kind of guy, right? And I decided I'd take it. And I joined Borden in January 1988. And the intention was to go to Beatrice, which I'd been on before, and I thought that's a great job. 15 minutes in a helicopter. Nice and easy. Get rid of your biggest risk. Yeah. Know the rig, know the crew, it'll be great. So I went to Beatrice with Borden, fantastic company. And I did three trips. And then they said, Hey, you're a really good spark. We need a spark for Piper. And I'm like, Piper.

SPEAKER_01 17:04

Had you been on it before?

SPEAKER_00 17:05

No, but I'd heard about it.

SPEAKER_01 17:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 17:07

And I'm like, hmm. And they said, You go there for 12 months, we'll put you somewhere else. Yeah. And then by that time you'll be a supervisor.

SPEAKER_01 17:12

And I'm like, sounds good.

SPEAKER_00 17:14

So I I remember in April landing on Piper and thinking, Oh my god, there are so many people on here doing different things. Because I couldn't make my mind up if it was a drilling rig, a production site, or a construction site. It's just absolutely swamp of people. And because of that. So how many people were on that? Well, I think uh there'd been the the full complement would have been 220 plus people living on it. But the Thalros was catering in 100 people that we come across every day. How many were on the island? On the Island, it's Ireland's pretty busy. We had uh because we had two rigs running at the time, but I'd say probably 130. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 17:48

So it was like a double that, okay.

SPEAKER_00 17:50

And because of this the very nature of it, the way it was set up, the only people you really mixed with would was your own crew. Okay. And your own crew were great, great bunch of guys, because they'd been together for a while.

SPEAKER_02 18:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:01

So we we worked safe, we had good processes, procedures, which they didn't have nothing to do with anyone else. Yeah. And that was part of the puzzle, right? You didn't know what was going on elsewhere.

SPEAKER_01 18:10

Yeah. On Piper. That was one of the issues.

SPEAKER_00 18:13

Yeah. And I remember when I was getting transferred, I remember conversations I'd had on other rigs where people would be talking about, well, you know, if anything happens in the North Sea, that's what it's happening. No, they used to what I'd held was it all happened on Claymore. Okay. And Claymore was his sister platformer Piper.

SPEAKER_01 18:30

And what was the problem with Claymore?

SPEAKER_00 18:31

It was just the same. It was just way. It was chaos, you know. And I don't think they were the best built platforms either. Claymore was a bit newer, two years newer, I think. The Piper was in my opinion, it was just such a rampant warning. You could tell bits had been added, and it just felt completely disorganised.

SPEAKER_01 18:48

Yeah. And then on on that day, what what happened on that day? Obviously, you kind of tell because everything you've just said there, it was people stuck to the rain, but for your part, what happened on that day?

SPEAKER_00 19:00

For us, we it was I always say the 6th of July 1988 was just another day for us. We were drilling, uh drilling ahead, it was a brand new well. The rig was running really sweet, and it was my first day back on board. I came back on board that day, believe it or not. I was on nights, and even in the handover, it was rig running really well. Yeah. It's gonna be a quiet night. You might get your head down for a couple of hours. Uh we'll see you in the morning. Yeah. And then it all just kicked. Went to shit. So for us it was a normal day. Yeah. And then it just uh the first explosion and then it just escalated so quickly. So scandalous.

SPEAKER_01 19:35

How how can a time-wise And where where were you? Were you working? Were you in the floor?

SPEAKER_00 19:41

I was in the switch room at the back of the drill floor at clock milled, 10 to 10 in the evening. Yeah. And it was 10 o'clock or thereabouts that the first explosion happened. And we were so removed from it. We were well above it in the on an A B A A module. Uh for us it didn't even sound like an explosion. It felt like someone had dropped something really heavy on the rig.

SPEAKER_01 20:00

Right.

SPEAKER_00 20:01

And everything cool about the place, you know, like tools and books. And I remember the uh in switchrooms, there's rubber mats in every switch room offshore. And I just remember the dust and the debris coming about 12 inches off the mats and thinking, my God, what's just happening? You know? But in that time it just wasn't an explosion for us. Yeah. I thought we'd been hit by a boat or we'd dropped something really heavy. And it wasn't until maybe five minutes after that, because we had a bit of a situation going on in the drill floor as a result of the fast explosion. Uh we lost all power to our draw works, which is a big windshield halls of tools, right? And uh we'd lost all power. So those tools that were a hundred feet above us were now hurtling towards us.

SPEAKER_02 20:44

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 20:45

And uh if you can imagine Andrew Sparky, put it all over the and I remember the driller, Fred, Fred Busby going. I just remember his face was just not panic, but just unbelievably shocked, surprised, shocked. And thankfully, he was so experienced, Fred was so experienced, he managed to get a manual brake applied, maybe with 15-20 feet above the draw floor.

SPEAKER_01 21:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:06

We'd have been wiped out.

SPEAKER_01 21:07

Just by that alone. You wouldn't even have known about the disaster.

SPEAKER_00 21:10

No, it would have just wiped us out, probably about I don't know, six of us maybe on the draw floor. Open, open drill floor. Yeah, uh tons and tons of tens of tons of tools above you, just heading south, you know. So we thought we'd dodged a bullet. And then we realized by I think we it was almost collectively, we kind of went, wow. And then we looked up. And if you look at the big door at the front of the drill floor, it's called the V door, it's a huge 30-foot high door where big equipment comes through. And I just remember you could see nothing except thick black smoke.

SPEAKER_01 21:43

Right.

SPEAKER_00 21:43

Which is just as thick as well.

SPEAKER_01 21:44

So you didn't see any fire or anything at that time?

SPEAKER_00 21:46

Just we couldn't see nothing from the thick black smoke. There's some embers in it, which was a strange thing, and a eerie noise, uh screeching noise. And our tool pusher John, John Guttrich, came running through the smoke. Like something out of stars on your eyes, you know, wouldn't it? Through the smoke.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

Yeah, open the door.

SPEAKER_00 22:01

And uh we're like, what's going on? And his first instruction to us was we're abandoning the rig right now. Okay. Because he'd seen it from a different angle.

SPEAKER_02 22:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:11

And it just escalated so quick from there, you know, some life-changing decisions. Some unbelievable sights. Yeah. You know, and hey, within 20 minutes, I found myself floating in the North Sea.

SPEAKER_01 22:25

Yeah. So you you jumped through what, 70 feet?

SPEAKER_00 22:27

You jumped through the eventually we got to the 70 float level and uh we had no option. It was we're gonna we're gonna die.

SPEAKER_01 22:34

And what was your decision there?

SPEAKER_00 22:35

Just fucking run and jump or No, mine's uh I was with uh in the der in the Derrickman, our Derrickman was uh Vince Wales, and Vince had been on Pipe Bar. And if you know anything about drilling, your Derrickman travels the whole rig multiple times every day, so he knows every ladder, every stairway, every access way.

SPEAKER_01 22:51

He knows where he's going.

SPEAKER_00 22:52

So I was kind of lucky him and I ended up together on the drill floor for the second time. And our plan was to get as far away from the blasts as we could, but not towards the accommodation in the other direction, which you would think is insane, but there's reasons behind that. And uh Vince was pretty animated. I was uh as cool as and calm as collectives as I could be. And Vince was ready to go immediately. He was like, No, we're going, we're going. And I'm like, that's a big, it's a big decision. And you know, when I think about the way we we dropped our hard hatch on the on the great things, we took our boots off because we knew they'd suck us under. We sparkies have always got tools in their pockets, right? They empty different out of pockets, and we just sit stung down thinking, is this really what we need to do? And Vince, there was an explosion, and Vince was gone, and he was just gone. And I didn't know if he jumped or he'd fell or he'd been blown off, and I thought, right, I just need to do this. And it wasn't how it was. Was it just the two of you at that time? Just the two of us. It was a mine's a pretty controlled jump. I I remember the things I had to do from my survival. Yeah. Cross your arms, pin, pin your arms things, peg your nose off in interverticals, and thankfully it's how I entered. But when you jump from 70 feet, you go in, and you don't know any idea how how deep you're going. Yeah. But it feels like you're going to the bowels of the earth. You know, you just think, oh my god, and your lungs.

SPEAKER_01 24:13

Especially where Brittany L's going on a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 24:14

Well, there's the pressure on your lungs and you just want to breathe, and it was just a terrible brief, thankfully. That was fairly brief a moment in time when you think, Jesus. Yeah, what's going on? And and how long were you in the water? I'd say I was probably in the water for 10, 15 minutes, maybe. Uh, because it was so dark and aerie and smoky, yeah. And everybody's focus in this in the in the supporting vessels, there was quite a few of them. They were all focused on the platform. We were in the water.

SPEAKER_02 24:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:48

And how do you how does a ship see in the water when it's all cloudy and murky and of debris floating around, you know? And I think uh I remember coming to the surface and just I would have been at twenty, probably twenty-two minutes past exactly, because in the timing is when I came to the surface, what do you want to do? You want to take a breath and gallery your bearings, but you're also about to do a 15-second check that none's broken or bleeding.

SPEAKER_01 25:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:12

And I was like, man.

SPEAKER_01 25:14

But you must have been in panic and shock anyway.

SPEAKER_00 25:16

I wasn't panicking, I was just like, I've dodged a bullet. Yeah, I'm gonna be okay, but I just need to get out of the water.

SPEAKER_02 25:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:22

And then the second explosion happened, and that was I've never been so terrified in my life. Because I heard it before I saw it, and it was just like a huge in the shock wave, and I could see this cloud of gas coming right down the world where I was from the 70-foot level. And I'm thinking, it's name my night, I'm gonna bite, I'm gonna be burned. I'm gonna be burned all up. So I went back under the water and I stayed for as long as I could, probably 20, 30 seconds, I don't know. And when I came back up, there's a picture that uh I use in my presentations of the gas clouds igniting and rising very quickly. And that's what I saw.

SPEAKER_01 25:59

And were you were you cold, or did that even?

SPEAKER_00 26:01

That's when the cold started to bite me below the water. Yeah, but above the water, I was kind of I felt the radius from the platform. So I wasn't at that time I didn't think I was that cold, but I knew I had to get as far away as I could. So I started swimming upstream because I knew everything was going downstream, and it was debris burning fires on that. And then I looked up my name was the mask logger, a big supply vessel steaming right to bottom.

SPEAKER_01 26:27

And I thought see me.

SPEAKER_00 26:29

I'm going under us. I'm going under this. I'm done.

SPEAKER_01 26:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:32

And that was the fourth thing in the space of 40 minutes. I was thinking of tatties.

SPEAKER_01 26:36

Yeah, a few different different ways.

SPEAKER_00 26:38

And thankfully they'd seen, I didn't know at the time, they'd seen Vince and I both jumping. And they were trying to get a downwind of us so they could break the wave splash to try and get to us. And eventually we were, I didn't know Vince was on board, but eventually uh he threw some ropes out, and that's when I realised that hypothermia was setting in because I couldn't grab the rope. Yeah. My hands were just ineffective. And I was like, oh no, I'm starting to lose touch with your reality here. And thankfully I managed to get the rope and wrap it around my body. And they dragged me into the side of the ship and up the uh scramble net. And many people were on that boat when I think I was the second one that picked up Vince. I didn't know Vince was on it. I started shouting, my buddy is in the water, and they're going, all right, get below you're warmed up. Yeah. And I'm like, no, but just get down below. So they were helping me get the coverables off because I couldn't use my hands. And then when we got below decks and they pushed us into the shower to get us warmed up, Vince was already there. Yeah. It was a moment of youth. Yeah. Because I thought, wow, we're both alive. Yeah. How lucky is that? And then they started picking up some boys that were just they weren't as lucky as us. They had a life-changing injury, so that was terrible. That was a terrible shit, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:54

When when did you when did you realise that that your your life had changed due to that? Because it was obviously the following day and everything else is very different than if they pre-Piper.

SPEAKER_00 28:03

Yeah. You know, it's an interesting. Well, I knew the look I mean, I knew there'd been two explosions already, and I thought, geez, that platform's burning like a candle, you know. I get a bunsen burner. And then when I went to make a phone call on the ship, I was on the bridge, and I remember that was at the 2250, 10 to 10 to 11 at night when the third explosion happened, and that was the MCP-01 export riser, and it was like Hiroshima with gas. Yeah. And I realised then, oh my god, nobody's getting off. If you're not off, well, you're not getting off. And then I thought, this has got to be a life-changing experience. And then the proof to be correct, uh by the time I got home that morning, I was classed as walking wounded when we transferred to Tharos because that's where they were congregating, all the folks. And we got to Tharos and they said, Look, have you got any major injuries? I'm like, No, I've got some grazes, I've got some burns, I'm warm now. And they said, Right, we're going to put you in a temporary bed in the Heli Hanger because the helicopter was up. And I remember the doors were open, and I remember listening to Piper groaning and creaking and moaning and explosions, and just watching bits of it slide in off and I figured, how is it empty and survivor? Yeah. And that's when I was in the last helicopter off of I say the last helicopter, the last one with the survivors on Faros, because we were walking wounded. And the thing I'll always remember as well is we flew in over Aberdeen, which we'd done a hundred times or more, but we came in almost at Aberdeen Beach, and we went right up Hutchins Street, which is on the way to the Porsche Hill, and we were really low, and it was summer, so it was already daylight. And I remember landing and I was a big uh group of people waiting to receive this, but most of us were walking because we were walking wounded, yeah, and we had blankets and stuff. And I remember getting to the main doors at Aberdeen uh accident emergency, and it was already families congregating, you're in press and police.

SPEAKER_01 30:13

And in the days obviously there was no social media like there is now. So how were people aware of that? I mean, I'm guessing the the company would get in touch with families, but to the wider public, would they have been aware of that disaster? It would have taken a while.

SPEAKER_00 30:27

I think so. I when I was on the vessel, the Mask Logger, I kind of realized that this was so big it would be on every news channel in the world. Yeah. And I thought I need to be able to tell someone that I'm off and I'm going to be home. So I asked the skipper on the ship, the Mask Logger, and I said to him, Look, I just need to make a phone call. I knew my way about boats because I'd worked on him as an apprentice. And you can imagine he was so preoccupied, he was like dismissive. He's like, Away you go.

SPEAKER_01 30:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:54

And I kind of insisted I needed to make a phone call, and thankfully his second mate said to him, Look, you'd want to do the same. So I was fortunate in that I made a call. And I think there must have been other people that were witnessing what was going on and had made calls. Yeah. And by the time we got there, uh, which would have been what, five in the morning, maybe. Uh even the helicopters can then Aberdeen, waking people up, you know?

SPEAKER_01 31:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:17

So by that time, uh it was quite a commotion outside of the accident emergency. And I remember, as I walked in, seeing a row of white coats, doctors and nurses just waiting to receive us. And it was comforting to see, but I remember them saying to us, they were doing sight assessments, and they looked and they said, I remember a nurse saying to me, Are you walking wounded? Are there anything we need to take care of? And I was like, No, no, I'm walking wounded. I've got no lasting injuries. And she said, Well, if you don't mind going in the waiting room, we'll come and collect you. We want to see those that are most seriously injured first. Yeah. And I realised I was on the last helicopter and there was no one else coming.

SPEAKER_01 31:58

And injury-wise, what did you come off of that way?

SPEAKER_00 32:01

I had a I recall I had a mechanical problem with my knee. It wasn't serious. I was still able to walk and had some broke burns and some uh what we call minor flesh burns, but nothing, it wasn't gonna heal fairly quickly.

SPEAKER_01 32:15

Yeah. And you you went back offshore, what, six months later?

SPEAKER_00 32:21

Not exactly, no. I I was my employer told me uh once they received me and we were allowed to debrief and all the rest of it, they said, Look, just go home. Because my girlfriend at the time was four months pregnant. And they said, Look, we know what to see you till the baby's here and you need time to reflect on what's happened, and we'll worry about your future later.

SPEAKER_02 32:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:44

And it wasn't till January 89. Sean, my oldest, arrived in December 88. And I had to go, I didn't have to, but I went in to see my employer. May said, Well, what do you want to do? But what do you want to do, Steve? And I said, I don't know if I can work offshore. Yeah. Said, but I want to go offshore. I said, because that's a demon that will be with me all my life. I want to get in a helicopter and get offshore and see how I get on. So my boss, Nori Weaver and Tom Whalen, arranged for a helicopter for the three of us to go out. And we went to beat this. Yeah. For me, which was a place of comfort for me, because I knew it that was 15 minutes. And I kind of knew when I put my feet on the deck that I could probably do this again. But circumstances What was that?

SPEAKER_01 33:28

What was that sort of emotion or feeling like going out and doing that? It's okay saying I'm I want to do this and then arranging it, but that day you go and stuff sit on the chopper again for the first time.

SPEAKER_00 33:36

Well, yeah, but I think because I knew it was 15 minutes, and Beatrice is almost visible from the coastline, yeah. I was kind of comfortable I could manage that. And and I've been I've had a mantra most of my life, separately since my dad passed, is if you feel the fear in something, but you need to do it, you best get it done. Yeah. Uh and not dwell on it. And I call it feel the fear and do it anyway. And I think that's what I knew I had to do. It was part of the healing process, I had to do it for this. Yeah. And uh I got a really good reception on Beatless because there's lots of people, and you can imagine people were like, he's alive, he's here, he's doing well, you know, despite they'd lost a lot of colleagues because cruising blank ran stuff back and forth, and it was that was a tough part. So I kind of knew then, but I didn't actually go into a rotational position. But I came back from Beatless. So how long were you on that Beatles trip? I was in and out the same day. Okay. And I came back in and they said, right, tick stock, we'll see you in a couple of days. And what I'd been doing, unbeknownst to the company, but it was my I was effectively creating a backup plan. And during my time off, I'd been- Is that in case you couldn't do it? Yeah, yeah. I'd been I'd I'd always wanted to be an architect until uh such things as my dad passed and all that. Anyway, and AutoCAD was coming in in the four, was 89, right? And AutoCAD and all that was just booming. Yeah. So I went and took a uh computer-aided design course uh while I was off on a sick, and I got some really good marks and good training and good competence and all the rest of it. And I was thinking, okay, I've got a backup plan. Uh so I went back into the office and they said to me, What are you thinking, Stephen? I said, Well, I'll be honest, I don't know if offshore life is going to be the way I want to go. I said, but I'm glad I've done what I've done. I said, and I need to be completely honest with you, I've got a backup plan. I said, and I've been studying computer-aided design and I'm and I'm now pretty competent and proficient in it. So I have to really think about that. And they went, Boy, AutoCAD. And I said, Yeah, because we've got a huge project kicking off. We're about to install a CAD system into our office. How do you fancy being responsible for it? And that's how I got into the engineering side. Yeah. So I ended up creating an engineering group. And I just went, uh, border drilling were fantastic to me. Well, they were they weren't as fantastic because they effectively were bought in 89 by Noble Drilling. Right. Is uh you imagine the impact on border drilling from a liability huge. So they effectively were going to go bankrupt if you didn't do. So Noble Drilling bought uh border drilling in 89, and I, for whatever reason, hopefully, not just because I'm a survivor, but because I showed promise. Uh I was on a kind of I wouldn't call it fast track, but I was on a development plan that I really didn't know I was on. Yeah. And I was really mentored by some amazing people through the organisation.

SPEAKER_01 36:32

And what what what point then did health and safety become I don't want to say a crusade, but become your your kind of real focus? Because you went for electrical to new CAD to to what you're what you've been doing for the last year.

SPEAKER_00 36:47

Yeah, and and so I I'm I'm quick to qualify to people that I'm not an HSE professional. Yeah, it's just something I genuinely believe in a lot. And uh Piper certainly impacted that hugely. But the thing that struck me was, and I was I was I did this some years a years years ago now, but uh some maybe two years after Piper when I was reflecting on where I was and all the rest of it, because I had some brassel stuff that was going on that was an ideal. And I went and I looked at the folder of all my historian stuff because I thought, geez, that was my plan. Yeah, and that's gone now. Yeah, because I could never immigrate, having put my mum through that, yeah, and having lost my dad and all that. I just couldn't go. So I kind of put act to the side, and I was reading through the references I got from employers thinking, Am I going to be employable? And I thought these references were really good. And the one I got from a drilling company I worked with. Why would you know I've been employable? Because I genuinely thought employers would think anyone that had been through Piper and survived would be a good idea. Mentally would struggle, mentally struggle. Uh so I went through these letters and I've got a typed up, I've got a few typed up letters, and a company I was working for in Alwyn were called Format Drilling. And I've got a Format drilling headed page as a reference for the immigration. And it's typed out, yeah, signed by my uh supervisor at the time, and he's he's written on it, and this is in '87 in his handwriting. He was French, Alain Girard, I think his name was, you're all right. Steve is a really good worker, and he is not a safety threat to his colleagues. He's broken English. Yeah, he is extremely conscientious and reliable and looks after after everyone else. And whether that was a sign or an unknown sign to me about my awareness around safety or no, I'll never know. But I know that was pre-Piper, which was quite surprising for me. What really made me feel differently was that I had developed an intolerance for people not doing a good job or cutting corners or not having a good work ethic, because I genuinely believed that a good work ethic delivers good safety. And I didn't really think about it at the time, but that's how I felt, and and I carried that with me all through my working days till this now. So to get back on track, uh, unfortunately, Borden Drilling uh disappeared in 1989. They were purchased by Noble Drilling uh as a result of the outcome of Piper. Borden found himself in a financially difficult place. Uh, unfortunately, Noble Drilling bought them and they decided to keep me on. I must have showed some promise because I was on some form of development plan, which I never really knew about at the time. And through about a 10-year period, I ended up being moving from engineering to special projects and going back to university, studying for a master's in business, on the understanding that as long as I passed that, I would continue to develop with the company. So that's what I did. And uh eventually, this is where my my real, I would call it my real involvement in safety became obvious to me. Uh, when I moved into the operational side of the business, I became a drilling superintendent for uh a drilling, a drilling operation in the North Sea, and that's when I really had influence over drill crews and contracts and so on and so forth. And that's when I really started to be more involved in safety from a very proactive approach. And I think that has stood with me ever since. But it wasn't always obvious to everyone else because as a result of that involvement at operational level, I became involved in things like the IEDC drilling community. I became involved in step changing safety's leadership team. And that's when I really started to, I think, show influence and safety. And I'll give you an example of how that looked to me and how it looked to others. I'd done a pretty good job at concealing my involvement in Piper for the first 10 years post-Piper. And if you ask people that worked beside me, I guess, who are new to the company, or that some of the people that reported to me, you weren't necessarily aware that I was a Piper Alpha survivor. And that was the same in the Step Change and Safety Leadership team. And uh it was coming up to the 20th anniversary of Piper Alpha 2008, and one of my colleagues, work colleagues, Chris Allen, who was the HSE manager at Total at the time, was with me in a step change meeting when we're talking about what we could do of significance to reflect on Piper Alpha in the passing of 20 years. And Chris had said, Why don't we get Steve to do a talk? And a couple in the room, man, I've been about 20 executives from main contractors, operators who were all involved in step change and safety, a few of those had said, Well, why would we get Steve to do a talk? And Chris turned around and said, Well, because you do know Steve's a survivor of Piper Alpha. And in fact, if his involvement in step change and change in safety has a big bearing on what we possibly could do for Piper Alpha's 20th anniversary. And some of the individuals in that room, who are very senior in our industry, were almost taken aback or shocked to find out that I was a survivor. But for others, they commented that it made perfect sense because they'd known of me and heard of me and worked with me and realized that that's why he's so passionate around safety and keeping people safe offshore. So that's when I really felt that I had influence, and that just continued as my career continued to evolve through to uh general manager, operations manager, and MD for Noble Drillings platform business.

SPEAKER_01 42:32

Had you seen that affect other people?

SPEAKER_00 42:35

That's an interesting question you raised there, Kenny, about people's ability to deal with or feel comfortable about being involved in Piper. I've seen firsthand through my involvement with the Pound for Piper Trust, where people have not been able to go to the memorial services up to now, up to 35, 36 years after the event, because they just couldn't bring themselves to be in the company of others who had grieved, etc., etc. And I know that's a real thing. Uh I mean I I class myself as very fortunate that I dealt with my grief differently. I was never open, I never openly grieved, although I grieved internally. Uh I dealt with it quite well. Uh post Piper, in fact, the weeks, not months, but weeks after Piper, there was an organization created in Aberdeen called Piper Outreach. And it was created by two social workers, David and Anne. And they were given premises in Justice Mill Lane just up the road from where we are today. And they made it an open invitation to those that had survived and those that were bereft, had lost close friends or even next to kin, husbands on Piper Offer to come along and just share their grief and their stories to try and help each other. And despite living very centrally, I just couldn't bring myself to go with that because that I was struggling to deal with my own internal grief and I just didn't feel that that would help me in any way. Now I remember getting the first call from David and he'd called and he'd had my details from my employer, which I was fine with, and he'd said, Hey Steve, it's David from Piper Outreach. I'm just phoning to see how you are, because you haven't heard from you, you've not been around. And I said, David, I think I'm doing all right. I'm coping. I said, and I'm just trying to get my life back in order. I said, uh, and uh, but thanks for calling. And he said, Well, listen, we're here if you need us, just pop in by, we do, we do it twice a week, kind of thing. And then another couple of weeks passed, and I got a call from Anne, who was, I would say she was still empathetic, but she was far more direct. And she said, Hey Steve, we still haven't heard or seen from you. We're just checking in with you to make sure everything's okay. And I said rather abruptly, because I didn't know, well, I'm fine or as fine as I can be. I'm just dealing with it. I said, and I think I'm I'm I'm progressing. And she said, Well, I'm glad to hear you're doing well. She said, because many others aren't. She said, many are struggling to come to terms with the grief and the loss. She said, and perhaps you coming along would be of a great benefit to them, seeing how you're dealing with it. She said, because maybe that's what they need is to see that others are not so affected. And I can't tell you how guilty I felt when I put down that phone because I had been so focused on my own recovery and not having any concern for others that had lost a lot more friends than I had and a lot more work colleagues. Uh so my guilt, I would say openly, my guilt almost obligated me to go along to the Piper Outreach meetings, and I did so with a bit of apprehension, I may say, and it was just as Bene described, it was a very grief-oriented uh session, growing men crying, growing men sitting in silence, not able to come to terms with it. And it felt extremely awkward, and it certainly wasn't for me. Uh, I knew it wasn't for me, but I thought it's best to go along. And I don't remember much about the two or three times I went along, but I know I I I bonded with one of the other boredom survivors at the time who'd had a fairly life-changing injury. He was struggling, and I thought it's the least I could do is to buddy up with him. And I did so for a couple of months, maybe even four or five months. I met his family, we talked a lot, tried to we talked about our friends we'd lost. Uh it was it was helpful for me, it was immensely helpful for him, I'm sure. But unfortunately, that just petered away and tragically uh Ian lost his life as a result of something else, uh, which we won't go into today. And I think that for me really brought home how affected some people were. I mean, there were cases of people taking their own lives as a result of them surviving and their friends not. It was such a tragic time. And the other thing that really affected me and affected others as well, was you can imagine that 167 lives lost, there's a a multitude of funerals are going to happen. Uh, and initially it was just the services and funeral services of those that were recovered from the water and the seabed, uh, which weren't many at the time. And I went along to some of those funerals and I just found it was such an outpouring of grief. These were all vastly populated events in graveyards and crematoriums, young families grieving, wives lost a husband, children lost a father. It was very emotional, and it did affect me somewhat, but I managed to get through all that. And then come the recovery of the accommodation module from the uh from the North Sea months afterwards. There was another 81 bodies recovered, and that was another 81 funerals that you either chose to go to or you're not. And I didn't know everyone, and I certainly knew I couldn't go to every funeral, but I was going to make every effort to go to those that I knew closely, or those that worked for the same company as me. And I did so for for a few, and then I got to one day when I went to Aberdeen crematorium up at Hazelhead, and I attended three services almost in succession, and that overwhelming grief really started to bite, and I remember going and sitting in my car after the third one, thinking I can't do this anymore. This is starting to really affect me. And selfish as it may seem, I chose at that moment not to go to other funerals. And I rationalised that in my own head by saying, What would they want of me if it were them that were here and I wasn't? I have to put myself first at some point and start my recovery. And that's why I I stopped uh I stopped attending funerals. Uh, and it led to me eventually becoming involved in the Pound for Piper Trust, which was another interesting development. I'd been abroad in for about nearly nine years working abroad, and I came back and I'm going to say I came back for the 30th service. I was doing something for the 30th service in Aberdeen. And the Pound for Piper, a trust that was created in 2013 for the 25th anniversary, the gardens and the memorial statue in Hazelhead Gardens had become a bit run down, and three very brave and courageous women, uh Carol Banks and two of her colleagues, had created the Pound for Piper Trust to raise funds for the redevelopment of the gardens and the refurbishment of the gardens, and it had they all worked in an offshore capacity, and they had done a fantastic job at raising funds, pricking the conscience of companies that were involved, and they raised enough funds to refurbish and replant the entire gardens, and that was through the people offshore donating, through companies donating and selling merchandise, and that's what created the Pound for Piper Trust. So when I came back in 2018, I'd known Carol from days growing up. She grew up across the street from me in Hidry Fold in Aberdeen. And uh when I got to talk to her, she said, Steve, it would be really good if you could consider being a trustee of the Memorial Trust. She said it would be really good for the trust. And I just felt compelled to do it because I just felt it was something I could give back to and help with. And eventually, a year and a half later, I became uh I became the chairman of the Pung for Piper Trust. And again, I tell you this because that's when I really started to see the effects still in place of grief on families, grandchildren that never even knew their grandfather would come to our services, which we started to have every year. Because I always felt that having them every five years or ten years, it's not disrespectful, but it wasn't it wasn't something that would be befitting people who uh have a loss every day, they suffer that loss and recognise that loss every day of their lives, so at least we could do it on an annual basis. So we still do those services on the 6th of July every year since 1980, well since 1988, which is when it happened, but since certainly I've became chairman. And those services are still well attended, uh, they're respectful, it gives an opportunity for those that are directly affected to come together. And that's when I noticed that some of the people that were coming up were who were survivors, were coming for the first time in 34, 35 years. And it was important that we were around for them because it was a big deal for them. So that's why we continue to do what we do and have a service every year because we think it's important for those that still grieve the loss of a loved one. And I think uh that's where we got to with a talking about have I seen people being affected by Piper not only in the work capacity but in the home capacity.

SPEAKER_01 51:32

Fair enough. And we'll end that part there with a