THE first thing Ed Punchard knew about the explosion on the Piper Alpha oil rig was when the roof of his “bomb proof” office collapsed on his head.
The diver, who’d already come close to one terrible disaster on the North Sea, then had to evade walls of thick smoke and flaming debris “the size of cars” in order to get off the blazing platform on July 6 1988.
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Ed, 68, was one of only 61 survivors of the world’s worst offshore oil industry disaster which killed 167 people.
He was hailed as a hero for helping his fellow crew to escape down a rope and then pulling others from the bitterly cold water.
But for years Ed was scarred by “survivor’s guilt”, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and an anger that no criminal prosecutions resulted from this preventable catastrophe.
A new three part BBC documentary titled Disaster at Sea: The Piper Alpha Story reveals how a slack safety culture in Britain’s offshore oil and gas industry was to blame for so many workers being trapped by a horrifying inferno.
Ed had seen the dangers before even stepping foot on the “wonky, worn out” Piper Alpha platform 120 miles east of Aberdeen in Scotland.
A few weeks after beginning his first offshore job on the Byford Dolphin drilling rig in 1983 five divers, including men he knew, were killed by a rapid decompression.
He’d also narrowly escape being sucked into the thrusters of a support vessel during a job which was being rushed.
There was a culture of cutting corners that many people believe the government turned a blind eye to because North Sea oil saved the British economy.
Ed, who campaigned for better safety, tells The Sun: “Not only had I witnessed Piper Alpha blowing up I’d had that experience with the Byford Dolphin.
“I was aware that inspection reports were being falsified. There was a culture that had to change.
“I was trying to make a difference so it wouldn’t happen again. But I was very much driven by the need to stop myself going crazy because it had been so horrific.”
Disaster waiting to happen
The Piper Alpha platform had been operational since 1976, pumping out 360,000 barrels a day at its peak and later also drilled for gas.
Sat in 470ft of water, this city on stilts was in constant need of repair by 1988 and Ed was tasked with supervising the inspection of its underwater wells.
I was very much driven by the need to stop myself going crazy because it had been so horrific
Ed Punchard
He says: “I think everybody who worked on Piper knew that it was one of the least safe platforms in the North Sea.
“There had been a fire a couple of years before and a complete evacuation of the platforms.
“It was noisy and dirty and one of the least comfortable platforms.”
A team of engineers had removed a pressure safety valve on one of the pumps for maintenance – but due to failings in the paperwork system the control room operator did not know this on the evening of July 6 1988.
Shock wave
When he switched that pump back on the gas alarms quickly started to sound and a few seconds later a massive explosion ripped through the rig.
Ed recalls: “An explosion, it isn’t a bang. It’s obviously a very loud noise, but it’s the shock waves that you feel.
“It just goes right through you. It stuns you to a degree. It was a bombproof structure, but we were very close to the site of the first explosion, probably only about 20 metres away, I guess.”
Control room operator Geoff Bollands had managed to hit the emergency shut down button prior to escaping.
It just goes right through you. It stuns you
Ed Punchard
That led to an eerie silence.
Ed continues: “Oil rigs are incredibly noisy places. And with most of the machinery shut down, I walked outside and it was very quiet.”
That soon changed.
All of the survivors told of chaos on board, with the control room destroyed and thick black smoke or flames blocking their path to safety.
Most of the crew had been asleep at 10pm and amassed at the designated ‘muster point’ which was the dining room just below the helicopter deck.
But the blaze was raging around there, making it impossible for a helicopter to land.
Jump or fry
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The heat was so intense that the crew’s boots melted on the hot floor and their hands burned if they grabbed hold of railings.
To make matters worse, the sprinkler system was faulty, no water was coming out of the firehoses and a state of the art “fire engine” rig was unable to get its rescue platform onto Piper Alpha.
With the way up blocked by smoke, Ed decided to head to the Spider deck at the bottom of the platform.
The only way down was on a rope, covering a distance of almost 80ft, with Ed leading other men to safety.
Standing at the bottom, he says: “It was a bit like being in a Jason and the Argonauts movie, where some giant is lobbing firebombs around the place.
It was a bit like being in a Jason and the Argonauts movie, where some giant is lobbing firebombs
Ed Punchard
“There were objects the size of cars, they were dropping into the sea.”
He was picked up by a rescue vessel and shortly afterwards a second explosion engulfed Piper Alpha.
That blast also struck an inflatable where brave workers were pulling survivors from the sea, killing two crew.
The men still on board the rig were left with the choice of staying in the red hot mess room or jumping into the sea where oil was burning.
Andy Mochan decided it was “fry or jump” and leapt from 150ft, before finding refuge on floating debris.
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Lost and found
His hands were so badly burned that he could not grab the scramble net when he was pulled from the water.
Ed, who helped Andy get out, recalls: “I’ll never forget it because I’m literally nose to nose with him and I’m trying to unpin his hands and they’re burned terribly.
“And I said, ‘what’s your name, buddy?’ He says, ‘Andy.’ I say ‘Andy, Andy, you’re going to have to help me out here because I can’t get your hands to release their grip.’
“And like many of the things that we went through that night, it was bizarre and crazy and horrific.”
I needed to find out what this monster was. I needed to understand how it could’ve taken my dad
Shane Gorman
Among the 167 who didn’t make it out was 41-year-old safety officer David Gorman.
There were reports that he was last seen in the mess room, rallying the crew, but his body has never been found.
His son Shane took the surprising decision in 2012 to leave his job as an independent financial advisor in Edinburgh to become a labourer on an offshore oil rig.
Shane, 55, who was just starting training in the army when Piper Alpha blew up, says: “I needed to find out what this monster was. I needed to understand how it could’ve taken my dad.”
Lessons forgotten
He worked his way up to safety officer and is now a safety improvements consultant.
Shane believes that while the Piper Alpha Public Inquiry headed by Lord Cullen led to huge improvements in the industry, too many risks are still being taken.
He says: “Complacency has crept in. The younger guys don’t understand the potential risks of getting it wrong.”
Shane, who “went everywhere” with his dad, is still living with the impact of the Piper Alpha disaster today.
Complacency has crept in
Shane Gorman
The father-of-two says: “It completely shaped my life.”
It changed everything for Ed as well, with him heading to Australia and splitting from his first wife in the aftermath of the disaster.
Ed, who lives in Perth, says: “An experience like that is difficult to come back from. I had PTSD. You might just be sitting about minding your own business and suddenly it’s like you have an electric shock going through you.”
Now happily remarried he sold his half share in a hugely successful documentary making company three years ago and is now a public speaker.
Even though Lord Cullen was highly critical of Piper Alpha’s owners Occidental for their lax safety procedures, no criminal charges were brought against the American company, which was run by Dr Armand Hammer whose great grandson is the Hollywood star Armie Hammer.
Ed was “upset” about that because he believes “the negligence was astonishing.”
He says too many risks were taken throughout the industry with 75 divers dying in the North Sea.
There have been no other North Sea platform disasters since Piper Alpha, but in 2010 BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico killing eleven workers.
Shane thinks it could happen again here.
He concludes: “Could something like Piper Alpha happen again? It could if we take our eye off the ball.”
Disaster at Sea: The Piper Alpha Story, BBC Scotland on Sunday August 24 at 9pm and BBC Two on Monday August 25 at 9 pm. All episodes available on BBC iPlayer
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