New details emerged Friday about the frantic final actions of the crew aboard the Deepwater Horizon oil rig after it exploded April 20, killing 11 workers and triggering the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
An official for Transocean, the company that owned the rig, testified to government investigators that he tried in vain to activate an emergency system that would shut down the well, despite orders from his captain to wait.
The official, Christopher B. Pleasant, a subsea supervisor, said the procedure was unsuccessful but showed early signs of success.
A panel flashed the words “E.D.S. activated,” he said, referring to the Emergency Disconnect System. The emergency mechanism appeared to have closed, he said. But it would not function, and plumes of smoke were billowing from the rig, he said, so he fled to a lifeboat.
His was one of many stories of panic and failure recounted to a six-member panel of Coast Guard and Minerals Management Service officials trying to determine the cause of the disaster.
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