A Halliburton technician encharged with monitoring pressure data on America’s most hated oil rig, the Deepwater Horizon, failed to see signs leading to the explosion that resulted in this year’s Gulf oil spill because he was taking a break to smoke and get some coffee, he told a federal panel. Joseph E. Keith would have alerted everyone on board that the thing was going to blow, and cost Obama about five seats in the House come November, but obviously God made nicotine addictive for a reason. When did Keith finally know that something seriously wrong was going on? He ran across the “body of a dead colleague on the deck.” You need to insert about five of your own Dick Cheney jokes into this post, by the way.
By the time Keith came back from his break, the readings on the monitors had returned to normal. Keith told the panel he realized something was wrong later when the screens he used to monitor drilling fluid used in the well began to bend and stretch, and an air-conditioning unit in the ceiling melted.
An internal investigation by BP, the majority owner of the well, found that the rig crew failed to notice signals of impending doom as long as 40 minutes prior to the explosions and fire. The report, released in September, didn’t single out individuals.
After escaping from the 6-foot-by-20-foot trailer where he worked, Keith found the body of a dead colleague on the deck. Keith was one of 115 workers who survived the disaster by boarding life boats or jumping overboard.
Whoops. At least the Halliburton guy who missed all the signs that a bunch of people were going to die on his watch made it out alright.
Somehow this is Obama’s fault for not quitting smoking. [Bloomberg via "William S."]
{ 96 comments }
I knew something was wrong when the air conditioner melted. I thought, hmmmm…. it doesn't usually do that.
Also, isn't running across dead bodies just part of Halliburton's SOP?
Halliburton runs across live people — it's the folks behind them who run across the dead ones.
Yeah, I would think the more bodies, the more successful the operation from Halliburton's standpoint.
To be fair, Joseph did pause with his cigarette to pose in front of the bodies, giving the "thumbs up" sign.
But then, Joseph noticed that the bodies were not stacked neatly into triangles, and he realized that something was horribly wrong.
Can we finally start teaching the children that 'smoking saves?'
I hope that 'grette was low in tar.
How did he know something went wrong? It blowed up real good.
Is this guys name Joseph Keith…or Beavis? "Yes Mr. Congressman, I had no clue what was going on until stuff started melting around me and my colleague was dead on ship, huh-huh." Is it just me, or aren't there supposed to be alarms and stuff like that to warn people when things are going to hell in a handbasket?
I'll bet the pacemaker in Cheney's black heart went off though. Probably wired for massive catastrophe notification so the old ghoul can sit back and enjoy the carnage with a bowl of popcorn.
Alarms are for wimps. Manly oil rig men use melting metal and dead bodies to know when to run like hell.
Yeah, Cheney's like anti-Obi Wan. When Cheney senses catastrophic destruction, he doesn't feel faint. On the contrary, those are the only moments he feels alive.
The alarm was turned off because it sounded too often with false positives.
Seriously.
Excuse me, my knowledge of the industry is limited to gas station fillups and the movie "Hellfighters", but is smoking actually allowed on an OIL RIG?
They're surrounded by water. What could possibly go wrong?
Halliburton. Worth every penny. Maybe I'll call them to do the electrical work for the bathroom renovation I'm planning.
Careful, they have shockingly high rates. I'm pretty sure their incompetence is really just a cover; Cheney uses them to harvest souls.
And where else can he get a steady supply of 20-year-old hearts?
We will miss your comments when you get blowed up brushing your teeth.
I wouldn't worry about that, he'll be evicted before the job's done because there's no way he's going to be able to afford Haliburton-style cost overruns.
It will look great, but don't think about taking a showering after the work is done.
My toilet paper is on fire. Is it supposed to do that?
Joe the Puffer is this century's Mrs. O'Leary's cow.
And the sub-prime crisis was caused by some poor blacks.
The whole financial crisis was because poor people tried to own stuff. They should know better than that.
Look at how they massacred my economy. This is why you poors can't have nice things.
Exactly, how is a defenseless bank supposed to have any idea who to lend money to? From their ads I know that they care about people, not money.
For shame on poor people taking advantage of their generosity.
The Poors should have never accepted the money that the poor banks offered to lend to them. They knew that they could never pay it back. Why did they think they could live above their means?
So they're going to blame this entire, horrible mess on some jackhole on a smoke break?
Well cigarette smokers are the low-lifes in Merika. Even crack ho's get more respect.
As if smokers aren’t vilified enough. Now this.
No, I am pretty sure fat people still rate lower. Which is ironic since you can live without smoking but can't without eating…
The simple answer to this question is: yes.
lucky halliburton, they get to have one lowly techie to dangle, slowly turning in the wind and held responsible for all that negligent homicide stuff that should be popping up soon. business as usual.
Rep. Joe Barton owes this guy an apology!
Smoking on an oil rig: sounds like a good idea!
You run across a dead body on deck one time…!
Great! Now Homeland Security will pass some more bad laws to protect all of us from the dangers of taking cigarette and coffee breaks.
This guy should find work where his addiction doesn't threaten the lives of his co-workers, something like GOP consultant or Regency Publishing author.
My smoke breaks usually take about five minutes, not forty.
Clearly, we should all try to work for Halliburton. 6 hours of smoking, 90 minutes of roofie-rape, fill in your time sheet and you're good to go.
Sure it sounds great, but I could never qualify for that gig. I failed the "drinking shots out of another guy's asscrack" part of the interview.
Seriously. WHO would think that this would be a good idea? Even gays I know are saying WTF?
After you convince yourself that invading Iraq was a smart move, the door is wide open to ideas of obscene stupidity.
Although yeah now that you mention it, this wouldn't be my first choice of body shot positions with, say, Angelina Jolie.
Great healthcare benefits too. Just ask Dick and his fake heart.
Yea, but having to navigate around dead bodies usually adds at least ten minutes commute time back to the office.
First he went to the coffee pot but someone left just enough to cover the bottom, so he had to start a new pot. Then he went to go smoke. When he came back, everyone else had filled up on coffee, so he had to make another pot and wait for it to be ready. So I think we all know who the real villains are here.
This guy + installing the thing with poor quality cement = commonsense conservative values.
x gouging the government for dubious services not always rendered as per the terms of the no-bid agreement = free-dumb
Poor-quality cement is the cause of many things that go wrong in the world. Just ask the Minneapolis Bridge Commission, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, and the Nuclear Regulatory Agency. And who makes most of said cement? The cousins of some guy from Jersey.
I blame Big Tobacco for the whole thing.
Hmmm…we can either blame the accident on the culture of corruption, the self-regulatory environment of deepwater drilling, the focus on cost containment over even the most rudimentary safety precautions, the use of drilling mud when heavier concrete was called for, the lack of a remote shutoff, and BP and Halliburton's cavalier attitude towards human life — or we can blame it on the dude who took a smoke break long after the explosion was already inevitable. Gosh, it's so hard to decide between these two equally significant factors.
Much pee and many thumbs up, Mr/Ms Wookies
He noticed the air conditioner melting? And not sounds of an explosion or intense heat?
I read the article, and I'm guessing that "ten minutes" was actually "an hour," and "cigarettes and coffee" was probably "black tar heroin."
Last time I saw appliances melt, it involved something that you don't smoke.
You were at the Roger Waters show too? Man that was awesome.
"cigarettes and coffee" = "masturbation"
Nothing says, "trouble," like stepping over dead colleagues on the way to the coffee pot.
DEEPWATER HORIZON OPERATOR'S MANUAL
SECTION E: Troubleshooting
E.5 – Hydraulic Pressure Needle is on Orange
E.7 – Hydraulic Pressure Needle is on Red
E.12 – Turbine Overload Needle is on Orange
E.14 – Turbine Overload Needle is on Red
E.19 – Drill Temp Gauge reads above 112 degrees
E.28 – Drill Speed Gauge reads above 67 RPM
E.88 – A/C Unit has melted and bodies are falling from the sky
If he's into S & M and racism, maybe E-harmony could fix him up with Lyndie England .
"Keith told the panel he realized something was wrong later when the screens he used to monitor drilling fluid used in the well began to bend and stretch, and an air-conditioning unit in the ceiling melted."
Honestly, he had no clue before that point? Wasn't it getting hot before the screens started to stretch and bend, let alone the AC melting?
In Joe's defense, he was watching pr0n on one of the screens, and it was hot!
If he's anything like me before I had my coffee, he sleepily stepped over those bodies 3 or 4 times before he looked up to see the AC unit melting. Then a few more sips of coffee before it dawns on him and he does a spit-take.
LSD is a helluva drug.
This was down in the Gulf where it's as hot and humid as the tequila his fellow Halliburton employees drink out of each other's asscracks.
Never underestimate the power of denial my friends. If we can make this guy the fall guy for all of the multi-national's ills, we will. Because we're stupid like that, and the media narrative will eventually paint that picture. Healthy skepticism died a long time ago. Our corporate overlords demand that we don't hold them accountable for anything.
**Look something shiny!
Can you say "Tort Reform"?
I heard that Joseph Keith was also on a smoke break here in NorCal when the PG&E gasline exploded San Bruno. This guy gets around.
This is the last straw. No smoking in bed. No smoking in church. No smoking on airplanes. No smoking in the restaurantes. No smoking at gas stations. No smoking on Federal property. No smoking in schools. Now there will be a ban on smoking on an oil rig located in the middle of the ocean out there in the open air and everything. It just isn't fair. Smokers have rights too bitches.
"I smoke and I vote"
Scapegoating: the all-American pastime! Or is it Getting Away With It? I can't remember.
Well, I for one don't blame the guy. I mean, no sense panicking until you see some dead bodies lying around. Nobody likes a Henny-Penny running around setting off alarms just because a few screens or air conditioners are bending and melting….And the panel just sits there and BUYS this shit? That's almost as bad as McChrystal testifying UNDER OATH that he didn't read Pat Tillman's Silver Star Citation carefully enough. Everybody gets a free ride today, except the little fellow.
Well of course it's all this one dude's fault; just like the Abu Ghraib torture was all the fault of a few bad apples among the grunts, no need to look into the officers giving them orders.
Cautionary note: DO NOT do a Google image search for Joseph Keith and Halliburton. Not unless you enjoy seeing lots of pics of naked Dick Cheney. Jesus, I think my lunch from three days ago came back for a rematch.
The Schoal Rebel would not have had this problem although there might have been some accidents caused by slipping on the spittoon overflow.
Well, sure. A melting ceiling is alway a dead giveaway.
And the bats. Don't forget the bats.
He'll see them soon enough, the poor bastard.
Worst. Jim Jarmusch. Movie Vignette. Ever.
After the quake wreaked havoc on Game 3 of the '89 World Series, Giants' catcher Terry Kennedy said "I knew something was wrong when I saw the dugout move." Well, at least no pelicans died in that one. (Wait, did they?)
This is the exact same thing that caused Chernobyl and 9/11. Say, what does Joe Keith's resume look like, anyway?
To be fair to the technician, bending and stretching monitoring screens and a melting ceiling air conditioner could have been interpreted as symptoms of the substance that was smoked.
This is why I don't think it is such a good idea for Americans to build and operate nuclear power plants.
But according to the government and media, Chernobyl only happened because under communism workers were lazy and didn't pay attention to safety, but the free market would prevent that from ever happening here.
It were those dern communist unions!
At least Homer Simpson doesn't smoke. Duff Beer, on the other hand…
This sounded like a rejected Saturday Night Live sketch up until the dead body part. I'll be living in the past if you need me.
In the words of America's unofficial Czar of energy safety, "D'oh!"
Are they sure it was a smoke break, and not donuts and a Krusty Burger?
Where ever Dick Cheney goes, death follows.
Teabag response: This the fault of government interference in our lives. If he had been able to fire up in front of his workstation instead of 50 feet from the entrance, this wouldn't have happened. Take that for secondhand smoke you libtards!~
When one monolithic industry collides with another.
Where exactly is the smoking section on an oil rig?
Thank goodness for Haliburton's excellent training video that Keith had been made to watch just the day before the accident. The video had pointed out the warning signs of an impending emergency. An air-conditioning unit in the ceiling melting, was sign #7, right after large explosions and lots of smoke and fire.
"You need to insert about five of your own Dick Cheney jokes into this post, by the way. "
So some guy takes a smoke break and misses an explosion and doesn't realize anything's wrong until the AC melts and he sees a dead guy on the deck and thinks, "hey, you're not supposed to be THERE!"
And this is the real story, not the Wonkette commentariat. Jack, I'm trying to think of a way to accept your challenge, but there's just nothing I can add to this.
Keith taps glass several times, says "This dead guy gauge doesn't seem to be working".
in the other news,,, a Space Shuttle flight is almost canceled because the base operator is having a Wonkette break
Jumping from a burning platform into a petroleum-filled sea. The very definition of out of the frying pan and into the fire.
Lucky strike.
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