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Oil spill hearings: Rig official could have insight on revelations about bypassed alarms, drilling oddities
Published: Wednesday, August 25, 2010, 8:39 AM     Updated: Wednesday, August 25, 2010, 9:04 AM
 David Hammer, The Times-Picayune 
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This is an update from the joint hearings by the Coast Guard and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement investigating the causes of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion on April 20.

BRETT DUKE / THE TIMES-PICAYUNE Mike Williams, Transocean, center, answers questions during the Deepwater Horizon joint investigation hearings Friday, July 23, 2010 at the Radisson Hotel in Kenner.

Mike Williams, who became the face of the Deepwater Horizon's ill-fated crew when he detailed his harrowing escape from the burning rig on "60 Minutes," is back at public investigative hearings into the incident.

This time, the rig's chief electronics technician isn't testifying, but is watching intently as the man he said directed him to leave key safety systems on bypass is expected to face questions from a federal panel in Houston.

Williams testified last month before the same panel in Kenner that the rig's senior subsea supervisor, Mark Hay, stood in his way when he tried in the days before the April 20 accident to fix alarm systems and inquired about odd things he believed he found in drilling operations.

Williams' July testimony was staggering. He said higher-ups from Transocean, the rig's owner and his employer, had set the rig's general alarm to "inhibited," so it wouldn't sound automatically throughout the rig when multiple zone alarms were tripped. Williams said his supervisors told him they didn't want workers awakened by a false alarm in the middle of the night.

Several witnesses have testified that they never heard the general alarm sound when gas shot up to the rig and ignited the night of April 20, off the coast of southeast Louisiana.

The decision appears to have been a game-changer for the 11 men who were killed in the accident, especially those working on the drill floor at the time. When methane gas shot onto the rig a little before 10 p.m., the bypassed alarm meant the men on the drill floor had no audio or visual warning to help them escape; a bypassed control panel shutdown meant gas likely had an ignition source in the airtight drilling shack; and the lack of an emergency shutdown system in the engine room left the rig's huge thrusters free to suck in more gaseous air, causing them to overspeed, explode and spread the fire.

Rig leaders had also decided to bypass a key system on the blowout preventer control panel that would have cut off the spark source if gas got in the drill shack, Williams testified. As it turned out, that's where gas apparently shot onto the rig and ignited, killing 11 workers.

Williams said he discovered that about five weeks before the accident, while he was trying to fix the gas-purging system. He said Hay set the control panel system to bypass its gas shutdown function, and when Williams questioned him, Hay said there was no point in fixing it because none of the Transocean rigs use the safety system.

"He said, 'Damn thing been in bypass for five years. Matter of fact, the entire (Transocean) fleet runs them in bypass,'" Williams testified.

Hay figured in Williams' July testimony again when Williams said he stumbled on something strange in the drill shack. About five weeks before the accident, Williams was called to check on a computer system in the drill shack that was constantly on the fritz. While there, he saw a contract worker with chunks of rubber that had come up from the well. Williams was disturbed because the only rubber in the system would have been the crucial annular valve on the blowout preventer, the huge device that's supposed to close the well in an emergency.

But Hay assured Williams it was no big deal, Williams said.

Shortly after that, Williams was called into the blowout preventer control area to see why the drill pipe had moved while the annular valve was closed tight around it. He said he discovered a joystick controlling the pipe had been moved inadvertently, and he deduced that the rubber valve must have been damaged.

Transocean attorney Ned Kohnke suggested last month that Hay and others might have different information to suggest the annular valve was not closed around the pipe when the joystick was moved.

Hay didn't show up for his scheduled appearance last month, but was called back for Wednesday's hearing in Houston.
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