Scientific Dictatorship

Witness Says Oil Rig Failed Tests

WASHINGTON — A U.S. House subcommittee has found that the well on the oil rig that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico failed two critical tests within hours before the catastrophe.

After reviewing 100,000 documents, members of the oversight and investigations subcommittee zeroed in Wednesday on a process in which cement is poured into the well to keep oil and gas from surging to the surface.

A burst of methane gas that reached the rig from below the sea is being blamed for the disaster on the Deepwater Horizon rig that killed 11 workers and has resulted in a massive oil spill that threatens the Gulf Coast.

The failing of the tests should have been a warning to engineers conducting them, said one witness testifying at a Wednesday hearing before the subcommittee...

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Missing Data Pose Mystery In Gulf Spill Probe

A "black box" can reveal why an airplane crashed or how fast a car was going in the instant before an accident. Yet there are no records of a critical safety test supposedly performed during the fateful hours before the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico.

They went down with the rig.

While some data were being transmitted to shore for safekeeping right up until the April 20 blast, officials from Transocean, the rig owner, told Congress that the last seven hours of its data are missing and that all written logs were lost in the explosion...

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Labels: Deepwater Horizon, explosion, oil rig