Piper Alpha e o Inferno na Terra: O acidente offshore de 1988 mais devastador que o Deepwater Horizon

Piper Alpha and the Hell on Earth: The Most Devastating Offshore Accident of 1988 That Outperformed Deepwater Horizon

Written by Paulo Nogueira

Published on 07/07/2020 at 11:24

Updated on 23/07/2023 at 12:04

Plataforma Piper Alpha em Chamas em 1988

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Ask someone in 2020 to name the worst offshore disaster in the world, and they will likely say the Deepwater Horizon accident, a semi-submersible drilling rig operated by BP that was in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. But something far more devastating happened 32 years ago today.

Piper Alpha in the Final Stage Before Sinking in the North Sea

This simple sinking buoy located a few hundred meters from the Piper Bravo is all that remains of Piper Alpha. Flames controlled, it floated silently as a memorial to the 167 men who died that night, many of whose bodies are still buried in the tangled wreckage beneath the North Sea.

Most major disasters do not result from a “single big event”, they escalate along a chain of small ones — any of which has the potential to change or completely disrupt the outcome.

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Just before 10 PM on July 6, 1988, a set of events conspired to create a situation that could only be described as Hell on Earth.

There was no turning back. The fire consumed more than half a ton of natural gas per second, equivalent to the entire domestic consumption of the United Kingdom, melting the 20,000-ton platform from the inside out.

Although no criminal charges were brought after the disaster, the UK’s offshore industry accepted all 106 recommendations put forward by the Cullen Inquiry. Recommendations that completely reshaped the sector and turned it into a widely copied model around the world. If those lessons were also learned/remembered in the USA and Brazil, perhaps the Deepwater Horizon could have had a different outcome …

Piper Alpha and the Hell on Earth: The Most Devastating Offshore Accident of 1988 That Outperformed Deepwater Horizon

The Soviet Union spent 22 years drilling into the Earth’s crust and reached a depth of 12,262 meters — they found water where it was thought impossible, hydrogen bubbling from the rock, granite that is 2.7 billion years old, and temperatures of 180 degrees that melted the drill bits.

Egypt wants to draw 10 million cubic meters of water from the Nile per day into the desert, irrigate a new agricultural frontier, and build a city where there is currently only sand.

Ethiopia has banned gasoline and diesel cars, placed over a hundred silent electric buses on the streets of Addis Ababa, and now aims for half a million electric vehicles by 2030, all powered by Africa’s largest dam and a courage that few countries have shown.

Norway is drilling 27 kilometers of rock 392 meters below the bottom of a fjord to build the world’s largest and deepest underwater road tunnel — when completed, a 21-hour journey will be reduced to 10.

An astronaut spent 340 days in space while his twin brother stayed on Earth, and NASA found a “rejuvenating” effect, genes, microbiome, cognition, and immune system that revealed the biological cost of living outside the planet.

After 14 years of construction and a diplomatic crisis that nearly led to a military confrontation over control of the Nile, Ethiopia inaugurated the largest hydroelectric power plant in Africa — the dam is 170 meters high, holds 74 billion cubic meters of water, and generates 5,150 megawatts.

A farmer from rural Roraima invented a bean-shelling machine that does in minutes the work that used to take all day, and the invention attracted so much attention that it was selected for a national innovation competition in Campinas and returned with an award.

Laid out like a chessboard even before having a single resident, Teresina was the first planned capital of Brazil and today surprises with avenues shaded by ancient trees, two rivers of different colors that meet, and chilled cajuína on the table.

A French startup wants to place 3,400 satellites just 375 km from Earth, closer than Starlink, to offer 5G internet directly to mobile phones without needing a special antenna, and has just raised 27 million euros to start challenging the American giants.

Brazil leads the attraction of foreign money in Latin America, ahead of Mexico, Chile, and Colombia, but the paradox is that the Brazilian investor is fleeing their own stock market and putting R$ 154 billion into fixed income while the foreign investor buys everything.

A Brazilian rode a motorcycle up to 5,000 meters of altitude in Peru to find the exact place where the world’s largest river originates, and what he found up there surprised even himself.

Piper Alpha and the Hell on Earth: The Most Devastating Offshore Accident of 1988 That Outperformed Deepwater Horizon

The Soviet Union spent 22 years drilling into the Earth’s crust and reached a depth of 12,262 meters — they found water where it was thought impossible, hydrogen bubbling from the rock, granite that is 2.7 billion years old, and temperatures of 180 degrees that melted the drill bits.

Egypt wants to draw 10 million cubic meters of water from the Nile per day into the desert, irrigate a new agricultural frontier, and build a city where there is currently only sand.

Ethiopia has banned gasoline and diesel cars, placed over a hundred silent electric buses on the streets of Addis Ababa, and now aims for half a million electric vehicles by 2030, all powered by Africa’s largest dam and a courage that few countries have shown.

Norway is drilling 27 kilometers of rock 392 meters below the bottom of a fjord to build the world’s largest and deepest underwater road tunnel — when completed, a 21-hour journey will be reduced to 10.

An astronaut spent 340 days in space while his twin brother stayed on Earth, and NASA found a “rejuvenating” effect, genes, microbiome, cognition, and immune system that revealed the biological cost of living outside the planet.

After 14 years of construction and a diplomatic crisis that nearly led to a military confrontation over control of the Nile, Ethiopia inaugurated the largest hydroelectric power plant in Africa — the dam is 170 meters high, holds 74 billion cubic meters of water, and generates 5,150 megawatts.

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Three sailors were injured after a fire broke out on the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower at a shipyard in the USA.

Historic building in the United States reports electrical fire, calls firefighters, and exposes an issue with an appliance that most Brazilians also have at home.

Elevator Plummets From Tenth Floor in Commercial Building in Recife, Raising Concerns About Safety and Engineering of Vertical Transport Systems Used Daily in Urban Buildings

A farmer from rural Roraima invented a bean-shelling machine that does in minutes the work that used to take all day, and the invention attracted so much attention that it was selected for a national innovation competition in Campinas and returned with an award.

Laid out like a chessboard even before having a single resident, Teresina was the first planned capital of Brazil and today surprises with avenues shaded by ancient trees, two rivers of different colors that meet, and chilled cajuína on the table.

A French startup wants to place 3,400 satellites just 375 km from Earth, closer than Starlink, to offer 5G internet directly to mobile phones without needing a special antenna, and has just raised 27 million euros to start challenging the American giants.

Brazil leads the attraction of foreign money in Latin America, ahead of Mexico, Chile, and Colombia, but the paradox is that the Brazilian investor is fleeing their own stock market and putting R$ 154 billion into fixed income while the foreign investor buys everything.

A Brazilian rode a motorcycle up to 5,000 meters of altitude in Peru to find the exact place where the world’s largest river originates, and what he found up there surprised even himself.