Piper Alpha was a North Sea oil and gas production platform operated by Occidental Petroleum, about 190 km north-east of Aberdeen. On the evening of 6 July 1988, a condensate pump that had been taken out of service for maintenance was restarted; a temporary flange on the pump leaked gas, which ignited and exploded. Fires fed by gas from connected pipelines then engulfed the platform.
167 men died, including two crew from a rescue vessel; 61 survived, many by jumping into the sea. Piper Alpha remains the deadliest offshore oil industry disaster. The public inquiry led by Lord Cullen made 106 recommendations that reshaped offshore safety regulation in the UK.
This episode covers the permit-to-work failure at the centre of the accident, why the connected platforms kept pumping gas, the evacuation and rescue effort, and the safety-case regime that came out of the Cullen inquiry.
