Oil spill judge hears from rig blast survivor

Michael Kun­zel­man, Asso­ci­ated Press

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A Transocean employee who sur­vived the Deep­wa­ter Hori­zon rig explo­sion tes­ti­fied at the Gulf oil spill trial Tues­day that a sub­or­di­nate killed in the blast was one of the work­ers who appar­ently missed signs the well was about to blow out.

Randy Ezell, the first rig worker to tes­tify in per­son at a trial designed to assign blame for the 2010 dis­as­ter, said Jason Ander­son was a “top-notch” tool­pusher who would have done every­thing in his power to pre­vent the blowout.

Ander­son was one of 11 work­ers killed on the rig, which was owned by Transocean and leased by BP. The well blowout ulti­mately spawned the nation’s worst off­shore oil spill.

Ezell, a senior tool­pusher, said Ander­son and oth­ers on the rig, includ­ing BP super­vi­sors, mis­in­ter­preted the results of a cru­cial safety test. Ezell said Ander­son told him dur­ing a tele­phone call less than an hour before the explo­sion that it was a “good test” and that there were no signs of trou­ble for 30 min­utes after the test.

Well data showed the first indi­ca­tion of a prob­lem could have been spot­ted about 20 min­utes before that call, plain­tiffs’ attor­ney Paul Ster­b­cow said as he ques­tioned Ezell.

“All I can tell you is Jason appar­ently mis­in­ter­preted what he was see­ing,” said Ezell, who was one of Transocean’s top super­vi­sors on the rig.

Ezell said BP’s well site lead­ers on the rig ulti­mately were respon­si­ble for decid­ing how the tests were per­formed and inter­pret­ing the results.

“We all knew it was BP’s well and he had the final say, the well site leader,” Ezell said.

Don­ald Vidrine and Robert Kaluza, who were BP’s well site lead­ers on the rig, were indicted last year on manslaugh­ter charges and await a sep­a­rate trial. They have pleaded not guilty.

Their indict­ment accused them of dis­re­gard­ing abnor­mally high pres­sure read­ings that should have been glar­ing signs of trou­ble just before the blowout. No Transocean employ­ees have been charged with crimes in the April 20, 2010, explo­sion or sub­se­quent spill.

Ezell said he doesn’t know why Ander­son and oth­ers were com­fort­able with the test results.

“I wish they were alive to tell us, but I don’t know what that rea­son was,” he said. “He didn’t tell me any­thing about a problem.”

Ezell also heaped praise on Ander­son, say­ing he trusted him with his life.

“I still have the same con­fi­dence in Jason that I did before the inci­dent,” Ezell said.

Ezell was off duty and in his room when he got a fran­tic call from an assis­tant driller who told him mud was shoot­ing up from the rig floor and asked for his help.

“I was hor­ri­fied,” he recalled.

Ezell was head­ing out to grab his boots and hel­met when the explo­sion blew him 20 feet against a wall, leav­ing him cov­ered in debris and disoriented.

Ezell, 57, helped two injured work­ers get off the rig safely. One of them had told Ezell to leave him and save him­self. Jus­tice Depart­ment attor­ney Michael Under­hill asked Ezell why he didn’t.

“I stayed because it was the right thing to do,” he said.

In a daze, Ezell and dozens of other work­ers had to watch the rig burn from a sup­ply ves­sel for hours before they were able to return to shore.

“You can’t under­stand the inten­sity of what we went through that night,” he recalled.

Posted by Matt Echelberry on Mar 5 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.