I needed to find out why North Sea disaster took my dad

Shane Gorman was 18 years old when he lost his father in the Piper Alpha disaster.

David was a security guard on the oil platform in the northeast of About 120 miles (193km) of Aberdeen.

He was one of the 167 men who died after a gas explosion, and in July 1988, he divided the facility in the world as the worst sea oil and gas accident.

The trauma of this loss shaped Shane’s life and inspired David while trying to make the industry safer for employees.

One New BBC Scotland Series Shane, who tells the story of the disaster and joined the army shortly before the explosion, explains why he decided to make a career at the open sea.

“I just felt what I had to do, or he says. “It was right for me. I went as a security guard, what my father did. He was always talking about keeping people safe. That was his call.

“I always wanted to understand what this happened, this thing that makes my father away from me. What is this? What has contributed to such a tremendous disaster?

“As it is understood, it is a catalog of things that need to be lined up. Only the perfect storm.”

David and Shane’s last photo was taken just five days before the disaster. The father and his son show that the arms around each other enjoyed a drink and marked a special event.

“This was a kind of farewell party or a good luck party to land in the army,” Shane said.

“I was 18 years old, and then he was 41 years old.”

Shane said goodbye to a train station for the last time before starting Basic training.

“My father and my mother took me to Edinburgh Waverley and my father squeezed my hand, or he says. “I remember shook my hand and say ‘go’.”

Everything has changed in days.

While passing through his basic training, Shane could not access or watch TVs.

He says: “You are in the army. This was my lieutenant, the commander was the officer, he went in and said:” You have to go home. Now. “

“They gave me a train order and took me to the Darlington train station in a Land Rover and left me.

“Of course, I’m still not smarter what’s going on. And I’m really confused about why I was sent home.”

Shane learned what happened to Piper Alpha, where his father was working on.

“I went to a box of cola and a Mars bar or a Mars bar or the newspaper dealer, and the paper just covered,” he says. “Metal sticks from the sea, headlines. Reporting the amount of deceased people.

“And to be honest, I knew you were exactly dead and didn’t come back. I immediately knew.

“I just cried all over the road on the train. And I’m 18 years old and relieved by two old women.

“I don’t even think I was able to tell them why I was so sad. Maybe I did, I don’t remember. He came in.”

Piper oil field is located in about half of Scotland, the western coast of Norway. He was discovered in 1973 and production began in December 1976.

Piper Alpha was founded in 1975 in the field. A fixed platform was attached to the 472FT (144m) sea bed of the surface of the North Sea with permanent legs.

Simultaneously designed to drill and produce oil, it was operated by the British branch of Occidental Petroleum, a US company with interests around the world.

In addition to oil, it was changed to produce gas, and at the summit, the platform is said to be about 10% of the oil production of the entire North Sea.

All of them ended on the night of July 6, 1988.

The events that led to the explosion began with a leak from the pipes connected to a pump. A safety valve was removed from the pipes for maintenance.

A communication failure on the platform also meant that the pump itself was done. When the pipe work, which was removed from the security valve, was initially pressurized, the gas began to leak.

Shortly after, the gas fired and caused an explosion that took the oil. The heat produced a fireball that swallowed Piper Alpha, smashing a gas pipeline from another installation.

The fire spread and the effects were destructive. The explosions were torn through the firewalls and swallowed most of the platform, including the control room and accommodation blocks that should be safe and safe.

Less than two hours of the first explosion, the supportive structure, which was weakened by intensive fires, began to buckle and collapse.

First, cranes, then drilling Derrick and finally accommodation modules fell into the sea. They were full of workers looking for shelters from Inferno.

165 out of 226 people died on board with two savior.

The surviving 61 managed to switch from the platform and the sea, where it was taken by a small ship fleet.

Five of these men jumped 175ft (53m) from the helicopter deck.

Those who had taken out Piper Alpha was taken to the hospital in Aberdeen, but took months to take into account the wounded.

David Gorman was among those whose bodies were missing.

Shane says: “The information we had was missing, my father was assumed to be dead. Strangely, my father was holding a door for people to stay in accommodation.”

Accommodation blocks were raised from the sea bed towards the end of 1988. David’s body was not between 87 inside.

“My father was never one of those who had never found,” says Shane.

“He acknowledged that we can’t find his body, because he gets his wages because … Not just getting a certificate of death, it’s not really about it … The fact that it’s not just a closing.”

David was one of the 30 piper Alpha victims whose ruins never healed.

The rest of the platform was overthrown in March 1989.

The official investigation headed by Scottish Judge Lord William Cullen was opened in November 1988 in Aberdeen.

The BBC series often recreates the sad expressions of survivors, rescuers and experts, while bringing together the night and the next events.

The investigation sat for 180 days for 13 months. Lord Cullen’s final reportPublished in November 1990, Occidental’s management of the platform, communication systems, attitude towards the security of workers, and the general industry and government supervision of the conditions in the North Sea.

With the benefit of working in the open sea after about forty years and 13 years, Shane is horrified by what he learned about the conditions of his father’s death.

“I don’t think they have a reasonable or practical way to fight such a fire that night. You can’t fight such a fire. You have to close the fuel and that didn’t happen,” he says.

“Even if they could clearly see that there was a great disaster in front of their eyes, they had no authority to quit pumping from the administration. Apparently there was a fear that they would lose their jobs if they closed.”

Shane was angry with the lack of public announcements to evacuate the platform, and that night was a disaster for the workers.

“This has never come. Most people had to just fade for themselves and try to find their own ways from the platform, or he says.

“To be honest, I thought it was an absolute shame. Cullen’s report discovered a systemic failure, cultural failure, a kind of crumbs for safety from top to bottom.

“How was he allowed? I’m not sure. But it was.”

The monument of the Piper Alpha disaster stands in Hazlehead Park of Aberdeen. He depicts three open marine workers and carries the names and age of 167 dead.

In July 1988 that night, the UK changed the oil and gas industry forever.

Lord Cullen made 106 suggestions covering the industry and the government’s business form. A long -lasting period of industrial restlessness and the protest from workers put pressure on change.

Since then, in 37 years, there was no major security emergency in the North Sea.

Occidental’s savings and families of the dead are said to be $ 220 million in compensation. Insurance demands for damage reached approximately 1.4 billion dollars.

In May 1991, Occidental sold the British oil and gas business to the French company ELF for $ 1.35 billion.

Two months later, Lord Lawyer Peter Fraser, the most senior law officer in Scotland, said there was not enough evidence to determine the cause of the disaster or any criminal responsibility.

He announced that no criminal offenses against any person or operators of the platform.

Shane Gorman continues to work as a security advisor in the North Sea oil and gas industry by continuing his father’s work.

Says: “Piper Alpha, we should not complain for all of us, and we shouldn’t let greed and money manage on people and security.

“I think that’s the message. People are more important.”