Piper Alpha: Red Adair’s plan to tame the fires
Piper Alpha and Offshore Health and Safety
Exclusive: HSE documents lay bare ‘alarming’ safety failings across North Sea platforms
Premium Content
Has the industry forgotten the lessons learned from Piper Alpha?
Premium Content
Anniversary reminds us there is no room for complacency in safety
Gold standard not gold plated: How the UK’s approach to health and safety is changing the world
Keeping ‘corporate memory’ alive of major oil and gas safety incidents
Premium Content
Piper Alpha Memorial Garden
Piper Alpha memorial statue granted listed status
All Piper Alpha Posts
Piper Alpha: How many regulators does the North Sea really need?
A few weeks ago, I had the good fortune of meeting Steve Rae, one of the 61 survivors of Piper Alpha and, in our conversations, something emerged about an aspect of the UK continental shelf that I’m becoming increasingly concerned about – the threat of overbearing regulation and the problems that it will create sooner or later. Or indeed has done already.
Piper Alpha: Emotional event for rig tragedy victims
Nearly 1,000 people gathered at a special memorial event last night to remember the 167 men who died in the Piper Alpha disaster 30 years ago.
Piper Alpha: Banner on show at Aberdeen Maritime Museum
It was sent all the way from Australia to Aberdeen as a means of commemorating those who died on Piper Alpha.
Piper Alpha: Fundraising concert nearing £30,000 target
A fundraising event for the upkeep of the Piper Alpha memorial gardens in Aberdeen is closing in on its £30,000 target.
Piper Alpha: RMT calls for improved offshore safety
An offshore union has called for better protection for workers on the 30th anniversary of the Piper Alpha disaster.
Piper Alpha: A time to reflect amid the grief
They are two words inextricably linked with tragedy and human loss on an unprecedented scale in the history of offshore energy.
Piper Alpha: We must remember sacrifices of victims, survivors and rescuers
On the 7th of July 1988 the country woke up to an unfolding tragedy, yet it wasn’t until the evening, sitting down to the nine o’clock news that most of us learned of the enormity of what had happened on the Piper Alpha oil platform.
Piper Alpha: Providing spiritual guidance
Offshore chaplain Reverend Gordon Craig believes the 30th anniversary of the Piper Alpha tragedy can bring the disaster “out of the history books and into real life” for many young oil workers.
Piper Alpha: The day my dad died offshore
Shane Gorman was just 18 when the Piper Alpha tragedy unfolded, with his father, Dave, being among the 167 people to lose their lives.
Piper Alpha: Offshore employers haven’t learned the lesson, trade union boss says
Pat Rafferty, Scottish Secretary of the Unite trade union, says he does not believe employers have learned enough from the disaster.
Piper Alpha: We must believe repeat can’t happen, safety chief says
The executive director of Step Change in Safety says the industry “must believe” that a Piper Alpha-scale disaster could never happen again in the North Sea.
Bishop: ‘Piper Alpha memories still raw’
Religious leaders have spoken of how the world must remember Piper Alpha because “we dare not forget”.
Piper Alpha: An experience I’ll never forget
On the evening of the 6th July 1988 I went to bed as I always did at just after midnight because I was in charge of my then baby son’s last feed. Having listened to the news during that feed I was aware that there was a fire offshore but at that point in time the details were sparse.
Learning from HSE successes key to industry recovery, Verum Solutions says
With the 30th anniversary of Piper Alpha upon us, the oil and gas industry deserves credit for its response to the tragedy and the way health and safety measures have been improved to protect the workforce.
Piper Alpha: Survival lesson from man who is ‘blessed to be here’
Steve Rae counts himself among the fortunate 61 who survived Piper Alpha and has made it his duty to ensure that the legacy of the disaster of July 6, 1988, when 167 offshore workers perished, “continues to be revisited, referenced and shared whenever possible with all those connected to and directly employed in the oil and gas industry”.
Piper Alpha: Justice denied by dark power
The latest Ridley Scott movie, All the Money in the World, rotates around the obsession of billionaire John Paul Getty with money and his refusal to pay the multi-million dollar ransom to free his estranged grandson from kidnappers.
Piper Alpha: Cullen Report left no stone unturned
Piecing together precisely what happened, why it happened and how to prevent another Piper Alpha happening again took Lord Cullen well over a year and 400 pages. The impact can be seen across the industry today and his verdict on the present state of offshore safety continues to hold great weight.
Piper Alpha: How the worst of times brought out the best in health workers
The scale of the Piper Alpha disaster was beyond anything Aberdeen's flagship hospital had experience before. At the helm was medical director Gordon Stone, who vividly recalls the extraordinary team spirit show by staff.
Piper Alpha: Importance of sharing knowledge – CMS
“Safety is not an intellectual exercise to keep us in work. It is a matter of life and death. It is the sum of our contributions to safety management that determines whether the people we work with live or die.”
Piper Alpha: It was too dangerous to keep diving
The first government official on the scene after Piper Alpha exploded still remembers the smell of the burning paint that greeted him when he landed on the nearest support vessel.
Piper Alpha: How lives were ripped apart by a perfect storm of failures
It is a date written indelibly into our history.
Piper Alpha: From one hell to another
The earliest memory Marc Reid has of his father was that his hands looked different to other people’s – badly scarred during his escape from the blazing platform.
Piper Alpha: The night we saw the sea explode
A flotilla of vessels quickly converged on the scene as everyone joined forces to try to save as many lives as possible. The captain of a tiny fishing boat was among those who joined the rescue effort.
Piper Alpha: Red Adair’s plan to tame the fires
When world-famous US firefighter Red Adair flew in from Houston to orchestrate the operation to “kill” the Piper Alpha wells, the mission appeared immense. Some even thought it impossible.
Piper Alpha: Workers’ lives are still shaped by tragedy
When the dreadful news about Piper Alpha broke I was in London working as a graduate trainee for Shell’s downstream business.
